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Water-Guzzling Data Centers Spark Outrage Across Latin America

In Colón, a town in Mexico’s Querétaro state, frustration is boiling over. Residents are protesting the construction of new data centers, fearing these massive facilities will drain millions of liters of water—leaving little for their daily needs.

Colón, a semi-arid region already struggling with water shortages, has become a magnet for tech giants. Lured by the local government, companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services are pouring nearly $10 billion into building data centers here, according to Querétaro’s governor, Mauricio Kuri.

Across Latin America, opposition to data centers is mounting as severe droughts push local water supplies to the brink. In Chile, public outrage grew after court documents revealed that Google’s second data center in Cerrillos could consume a staggering 7 billion liters of water annually—enough for 80,000 people.

At first, the government ignored local protests, but an environmental court stepped in, forcing Google to rethink its cooling methods. The company ultimately agreed to switch to fan-based cooling.

In Colón, anticipating backlash, Amazon moved quickly, pledging to use air-cooling systems instead of water. Google, meanwhile, promised to work with environmental experts to find solutions.

“Data centers rely on water-cooled systems because… well, they’re cheap,” said Lars Nyman, Chief Marketing Officer at Cudo Compute, a cloud computing platform based in Britain.

When Google installed its first Latin American data center in the Chilean capital of Santiago, there was little opposition. The government proudly celebrated the increased investment in its data center infrastructure.

Create Fewer Jobs, But Consume Resources

These days, Chile is viewing data center operators with more skepticism. While data centers consume enormous amounts of precious resources, they create relatively few jobs.

Even after tripling in size, Google’s first data center in Chile created only 120 permanent jobs, starting with just 20 employees.

Data centers are not just heavy consumers of water—they also require vast amounts of electricity. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data center electricity consumption is expected to double, rising from 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022 to between 650 TWh and 1,050 TWh by 2026.

In Ireland, data centers could account for up to 32% of the country’s total electricity usage, highlighting their significant impact on national energy grids.

Chileans were outraged for the first time when Google’s annual report revealed that its Santiago data center consumed 105 million gallons (397 million liters) of drinking water in 2023, up from 104 million gallons the year before. The steady increase raised serious concerns.

Tensions escalated further when Microsoft announced plans to build a data center in Quilicura, near Google’s facility, triggering protests.

Lars Nyman is Chief Marketing Officer at Cudo Compute, a cloud computing platform based in Britain.

This issue is not just a regional concern. The global demand for data centers is skyrocketing, driven by the rapid growth of AI technologies. With this surge comes a significant environmental cost. In Loudoun County, Virginia, water usage by data centers has soared by 250% since 2019.

A single 15-megawatt data center can require 1.36 million liters of water daily. In Colón, the three proposed data centers alone could consume up to 4 million liters. That’s a huge amount of water for a town with just 65,000 residents.

In Uruguay, Google admitted that its proposed data center would require 7.6 million liters of water per day—equivalent to the daily water consumption of 55,000 people.

As water becomes increasingly scarce, nations may rethink their enthusiasm for data center investments. The stakes are high: the United Nations have predicted that, by this year, half the world’s population will live in regions grappling with water stress.

“There are better ways to cool down servers,” says Nyman, whose company competes with major cloud vendors. “Air cooling, closed-loop systems, and newer technologies like immersion cooling methods.”

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“But adopting these systems requires upfront investment and, frankly, a willingness to break from Big Tech’s ‘grow now, repent later’ playbook,” he remarked.

“Switching from traditional water-cooled systems to air cooling could increase capital expenditure by 20–50%, to name a very rough figure — this will be depending on the scale and location of the data center. The actual cost also depends heavily on factors like existing infrastructure, climate, and the specific air cooling technology used.”

Narayan Ammachchi

News Editor for Nearshore Americas, Narayan Ammachchi is a career journalist with a decade of experience in politics and international business. He works out of his base in the Indian Silicon City of Bangalore.

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