A HOT POTATO: Anti-data center sentiment has intensified in the US since the AI boom began around 2022. However, the US is far from the only country in which data centers, built for AI and other technologies, negatively impact power and water supplies. In Chile, they are one of several factors driving a historic water crisis.
The Quilicura wetland, just north of Chile's capital, Santiago, has the largest concentration of data centers in Latin America. Consuming billions of liters of water annually, data centers have exacerbated dry conditions in a swamp already suffering from the worst drought in over 100 years of recordkeeping.
Although generative AI has brought more attention to the issue as data centers impact communities across the globe, particularly in the US, Chile's data center boom actually began in 2015, long before the birth of ChatGPT. Google began building data centers in the area as the government sought to promote Chile as a regional tech hub. Six now occupy the Quilicura area, among 33 operating in Chile, with another 34 planned.
A 2022 report estimated that data centers built by Google, Microsoft, Sonda, and other tech companies consume around 1.5 billion liters of water from Quilicura annually. Google alone acquired the right to extract 50 liters per second.
