"Thai data center boom sparks fears of water shortage, air pollution", 11 March 2026

… With the data centers springing up in an already heavily industrialized area that has struggled with water shortages and pollution, local residents say they fear the new sector could make the situation worse…

Tech giants including Amazon, Google, TikTok and Microsoft are among those reportedly investing billions of dollars in data center projects across Thailand, which along with other Southeast Asian countries has introduced tax incentives and other policies to attract investment in the sector…

… Developers have been accused of polluting the water, soil and air by illegally dumping toxic substances, discharging improperly treated wastewater, spilling oil and more.

Now some local residents fear these issues will intensify with the proliferation of data centers, which require massive amounts of water for cooling and electricity to process AI workloads and are not without pollution issues…

… Residents fear data centers could add to existing water woes

… Named QHI01, the facility is being developed by Bridge Data Centres (BDC), an arm of U.S.-based Bain Capital. The firm says it has secured $2.8 billion in bank financing to build new data centers across Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.

To supply QHI01 with water, BDC says it has signed a 10-year agreement with Thailand’s Eastwater Stecon Utilities Co., Ltd., (EWS), a joint venture between private water utility East Water and a subsidiary of engineering firm Stecon Group…

… The vast majority of companies reportedly building data centers in Chonburi and Rayong, including China’s Haoyang Data, Amazon, DayOne and TikTok, did not reply to requests for comment.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the company is building a data center in Chonburi, but declined to disclose its exact location, citing security concerns. Google also declined to answer questions about the capacity and projected water consumption of its data centers in Thailand on confidentiality grounds. The spokesperson said that once operational, the Chonburi facility would support about 100 jobs…

The spokesperson added that Google had conducted an environmental impact assessment for its Chonburi data center but declined to share the findings.

‘It’s already broken’

Wastewater presents another unknown. Locals interviewed … expressed concern over the lack of public information on not just how much water new data centers will consume but also how they will treat and dispose of water used for cooling.

… One of the data centers is Galaxy Data Center’s planned 1-GW “hyperscale” facility. A spokesperson for Hoyinn Technologies, which owns Galaxy, declined to answer questions sent by Mongabay but said their operations fully complied with local regulations…