The News
Google said it would rework from scratch its plan to build a $200 million data center in Santiago, Chile after opposition from locals and environmentalists. The tech giant’s decision comes months after a Chilean court partially revoked its 2020 permit, siding with activists who complained that the data center would exacerbate Santiago’s yearslong drought by using residents’ water supplies to cool its servers.
The artificial intelligence boom has accelerated Big Tech’s use of water: Google’s water consumption increased by 22% between 2020 and 2022, according to the Financial Times. Critics have described Google’s plans to build data centers in Latin America as “data colonialism” that exploits countries’ “cheap water, electricity, and lax environmental standards,” conservation news outlet Mongabay wrote.