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There seems to be a profound ambivalence about digital sovereignty because the Indian
government performatively stands up to foreign multi-national “Big Tech” companies claiming
the right to Indian data while it continues to intrude into the citizens’ bodies through biometric
governance, thereby violating their bodily sovereignty and autonomy. Furthermore, acceleration
in data localization practices with construction of data centers to keep the data of more and more
mobile internet consuming Indian citizens within India could lead to energy extraction practices
that may have severe environmental impact. Data centers are energy guzzlers, and in this
moment of intersecting energy cultures with rapidly depleting coal and oil reserves and concerns
about climate change, data center companies operating in India are increasingly strategizing to
capture lands for wind and solar energy projects in the name of “green capitalism” to meet data
center needs through carbon offsets. Thinking through entangled questions of energy justice, data
privacy and surveillance, and environmental media, this paper connects data sovereignty
considerations with data-energy relations to reimagine practices of data storing and processing in
the so-called “Global South.”