Residents storm data centre compound

About 300 residents of Batam, an Indonesian island, broke into a compound housing data centres, shouting 'Water! Water!' and carrying empty plastic bottles and jerry cans. Their home taps had run dry while the data centres in the new Nongsa Digital Park appeared to have enough water to keep their machines from overheating. Dewi Susanti, a protester from the village of Bakau Serip, told the BBC that residents now depend on tanker trucks that dispense water she described as dirty, cloudy and smelly.

Not a single drop has come through our taps for the last three months... Our water supply had been reliable until the data centres came.

Utility and agency responses

Batam's water utility told the BBC it was working to improve supply but did not comment on whether the disruption was linked to demand from data centres. BP Batam, the agency overseeing trade and industry, blamed the shortage on a prolonged dry spell and denied allegations that water meant for homes was being channelled to data centres. Residents say they are increasingly forced to compete with servers for water.

Reservoirs under strain

Batam has no natural sources of freshwater and relies on rain collected in six artificial reservoirs. Akar Bhumi Indonesia, an environmental organisation, says the Nongsa reservoir, which supplies the community of Bakau Serip, could run dry within a month without rain. It is not known how much water the Batam data centres actually consume. US research cited in the same reporting finds that a typical data centre uses about 1.1 million litres of water a day, equal to the consumption of about 1,000 American households.

Reliable data on data centre water use in Indonesia remains scarce, partly because companies treat it as proprietary information.

Data centre build-out and new rules

Authorities have approved ten data centres in Batam. Two already operate in the Nongsa park, a third is under construction, and other projects await approval. Investment in the island's data centres exceeded $6.7 billion by mid-2026, boosted partly by demand from Singapore. After the protests in August and September, authorities told companies opening data centres in Batam that they must build their own desalination plants instead of relying on the island's reservoirs for freshwater.

Wider backlash

Opposition to data centres is also growing in the United States, the United Kingdom and parts of Asia, as tech companies invest billions in AI infrastructure. Residents in these areas worry about the size of the windowless buildings, the constant noise of machines, security lights that can stay on all night, and the strain on water and energy resources. In Batam, residents are asking authorities to give priority to the needs of the local population.