U.S. tech giants such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are constructing water-intensive data centers in Chile, exacerbating the country’s ongoing drought. Over the past decade, 15 data centers have been approved in Santiago’s metro area, each consuming millions of tons of water annually to prevent overheating. Local communities, environmental experts, and activists are opposing these developments, arguing that the companies deplete local water resources without contributing to the community. The drought in Chile is expected to last until 2040, intensifying concerns about water usage by these data centers. The surge in AI has partly fueled the construction of these data centers, and activists are demanding more environmental accountability from these tech giants.
Amid a national drought, Chilean activists are pushing back against the development of new #data centers: https://t.co/nPBWbE14Lh #ethics #law #tech #AI #business #gov #tech #sustainability #environment
Big tech is building data centres in Chile fuelled partly by the surge in AI. They use huge amounts of water in a country experiencing drought. Something has to give. https://t.co/nFHJZ8SBPR
During the past decade, 15 data centers — most of which use millions of tons of water to keep computers from overheating annually — have been approved in Santiago’s metro area. Meanwhile, Chile is in the midst of a drought expected to last until 2030 https://t.co/ZiFyigHGU8
A look at activist groups' efforts to keep Amazon, Google, and Microsoft from building more data centers in Chile, amid a drought expected to last until 2040 (Rest of World) https://t.co/2pA1oqrx6R 📫 Subscribe: https://t.co/OyWeKSRpIM https://t.co/JrAjmyMWxP
In Chile, Rest of World spoke with locals, environmental experts, and activists who have squared off with American tech giants in an attempt to stop new data centers from being built and to demand more environmental accountability https://t.co/ZiFyigHGU8 https://t.co/ZVjNImjQbw
Chile has become host to large data centers operated by tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Locals are pushing back, arguing these companies “use water, dry up the territory, but don’t give anything back to the community” https://t.co/ZiFyigHGU8
U.S. tech giants are building water-guzzling data centers in Chile, in the midst of a drought. Locals are fighting back https://t.co/ZiFyigHGU8