Age of AI: behind Tarluvada’s blue wall in Visakhapatnam

The muddy, unpaved road into Tarluvada runs along a wall of tall blue corrugated iron sheets. Once, it was just farms and forests. What is being built behind the wall is hidden from view.

Just beyond, on the hill locals call Chukka Konda, a broad swathe of the slope has been stripped back to red earth and cut into terraces, stark against the green around it. Last year, when government officials came to the small village in Anandapuram mandal on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, they had made big promises: plentiful jobs and opportunities once Google, the American tech corporation, built its hyperscale 1 GW AI data centre there. Today, the village is uneasy.

Many farmers refuse to talk. Leaders of Left parties say they are not allowed to meet the locals to understand their problems, and those who speak to them are being targeted and harassed by the police.