New Delhi: The Andaman and Nicobar island administration has now withdrawn the call for proposals from the private sector for the development of a ‘green’ AI data centre in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, due to “administrative reasons”.In a communication dated August 14, the Office of the Secretary (IT) – the same office that floated the call for proposals for the data centre on August 10 – said that the Expression of Interest to set up a private sector-led green AI/data centre now stands withdrawn with “immediate effect due to administrative reasons”.The communication, however, does not specify what these “administrative reasons” are.In a notice dated August 10, the island administration had called for expressions of interest (EOIs) from entities in the private sector to explore the feasibility of developing a “Green AI or Data Centre Vertical” in suggested locations in Great Nicobar or Little Andaman, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.The notice had provided several details pertaining to the proposed data centre, and said that it could include hyperscale and/or AI-focused data-centre infrastructure, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and high-performance computing infrastructure, cloud computing and sovereign digital infrastructure, renewable-energy-powered data-centre operations, seawater-based or other innovative cooling systems, freshwater-free cooling solutions, and more.The locations for the data centre proposed on the Great Nicobar island were the Campbell Bay Sea Area, Anderson Bay Sea Area, Vijay Nagar Bay Sea Area or Gandhi Nagar Bay Sea area.The island is already the location for infrastructure projects worth Rs. 92,000 crore; projects will include a greenfield airport, an international transshipment container terminal, a power plant, a township and tourism facilities. The projects have drawn a lot of controversy and criticism for numerous reasons including the manner in which the union environment ministry has given clearance for the projects, and how local dissent against the projects have not been factored into the process at all. Two cases pertaining to these issues are still being heard in the Calcutta high court.