Drought Forces Big Tech to Rethink Data Centers in Latin America

As South America grapples with prolonged drought, tech giants like Google and Amazon are reconsidering their plans for water-dependent data centers. The shift toward more sustainable solutions is reshaping the region’s data infrastructure amid growing environmental concerns.

Data Centers: The Hidden Water Guzzlers

Data centers are the backbone of today’s digital world, housing the servers that process and store the vast amounts of information generated by billions of connected devices. While the energy consumption of these centers has been widely scrutinized, their massive water use has only recently come under the spotlight. Cooling systems, which account for about 40% of a data center’s structure, rely heavily on water to regulate the heat generated by high-frequency processors.

“There are billions of transistors in a circuit in high-frequency processors. That generates a lot of heat,” Eduardo Vera, coordinator of the Center for Mathematical Modeling at the University of Chile, told AFP. To prevent these systems from overheating, vast quantities of water are used, but as drought conditions worsen in parts of South America, this practice is facing increasing scrutiny.

In Chile, where Google plans to build its largest data center in Latin America, concerns over water consumption have reached a critical point. The $200 million project, located in the Santiago suburb of Cerrillos, initially called for a cooling system that would consume an astonishing seven billion liters (1.85 billion gallons) of water annually—roughly equivalent to the yearly consumption of 80,000 residents. But a decade-long drought in the region has fueled public backlash, forcing the tech giant to rethink its plans.

Communities Demand Change

As droughts worsen, local communities in South America are increasingly aware of the environmental toll that massive data centers can take. In Chile, environmentalists quickly raised concerns about Google’s Cerrillos data center project, sparking a legal battle culminating in an environmental court ordering the company to reduce its water consumption.

“They fought us (…), but finally they changed the cooling system, and we set a precedent,” said Tania Rodriguez of the Community Socio-Environmental Movement for Water and Territory in an interview with AFP. Rodriguez’s organization has been at the forefront of the push to protect local water resources, particularly as many communities in Chile rely on dwindling groundwater supplies for survival.

The concerns are not limited to Chile. In Uruguay, environmental activists have similarly challenged Google’s plans for a data center near Montevideo. When the company announced its $850 million investment in 2019, it estimated the center would require 2.7 billion liters of water annually. However, after a record-breaking drought in 2023 nearly depleted the country’s drinking water reserves, public outcry forced Google to reconsider its approach.

“The situation in Uruguay was a wake-up call for us,” a Google spokesperson told AFP. The company pivoted to a more expensive but far less water-intensive air cooling system in response to the crisis.

Air Cooling as the New Standard

With mounting pressure, Google and Amazon have started adopting more sustainable technologies in their Latin American data centers. Air cooling, which relies on ambient air rather than water to cool servers, has become a key solution to the region’s water scarcity challenges.

Last month, Google announced it had revised its plans for the Cerrillos facility, opting for air-cooling technology that drastically reduces water consumption. “We’ve made significant changes to our original plans,” a Google spokesperson told AFP, adding that the new system would use air cooling to minimize water use. “This approach is part of our broader commitment to becoming more climate-conscious and using natural resources responsibly.”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has also committed to more sustainable practices in its future data centers. Will Hewes, head of water sustainability for AWS, told AFP that the company aims to make all of its data centers “water-positive” by 2030. AWS intends to conserve or replenish more water than it uses, a critical goal given the growing demand for data processing and storage worldwide.

“These changes are expensive but necessary,” Hewes explained. “With climate change impacting every corner of the globe, especially in regions like Latin America, we need to ensure that our facilities are not putting additional strain on already scarce resources.”

In Uruguay, Google’s pivot to air cooling is expected to significantly reduce its impact on the local water supply, a change that environmentalists like Rodriguez see as a victory. But while the switch to air cooling represents a step forward, it’s clear that water remains a crucial issue for the region’s data infrastructure.

The Future of Latin America’s Data Industry

Despite the challenges of droughts, Latin American governments remain eager to attract tech investments in the data sector. President Gabriel Boric’s administration in Chile has set ambitious goals to double the country’s data center capacity from 22 to 50 centers by 2025. Government officials tout Chile’s political stability and robust internet connectivity as critical assets for international investors while also pledging to minimize environmental impact.

“Water consumption at these new facilities will be practically zero,” Aisen Etcheverry, Chile’s Minister of Science and Technology, told AFP. “We are working closely with companies like Google and Amazon to ensure new technologies are in place to reduce water use and energy consumption.”

For tech giants like Google and Amazon, the stakes are high. Data centers are critical to their operations, enabling cloud services, artificial intelligence applications, and other technologies that drive their business models. As demand for these services continues to grow, so does the need for sustainable infrastructure to support them.

Rodrigo Vallejos, a local environmental activist in Chile, remains skeptical. “Data centers operate 24/7, and it’s tough to change their cooling system once built,” he explained to AFP. Vallejos worries that the existing infrastructure will continue to strain local resources despite promises of greener technologies in the future.

For now, the transition to air cooling represents a compromise between environmental concerns and the economic benefits that data centers bring to Latin America. While the shift reduces the water footprint of new facilities, older centers like Google’s Quilicura data center in Santiago will continue to consume large amounts of water—an estimated one billion liters per year, or the equivalent of 285 Olympic swimming pools.

As Latin America’s data industry expands, governments, companies, and communities must work together to find sustainable solutions. The region’s prolonged droughts have exposed the vulnerabilities of water-intensive technologies, forcing Big Tech to adapt. However, with billions of dollars in investment, the future of data centers in Latin America will depend on how quickly and effectively these companies can reduce their environmental impact.

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The drought crisis in South America has pushed tech giants like Google and Amazon to rethink their approach to data centers, particularly regarding water consumption. With local communities and environmental activists demanding change, the shift toward air-cooling technology marks an essential step in the right direction. However, as the data industry continues to grow, the challenge of balancing economic development with environmental sustainability remains a pressing issue. For now, Latin America is at the forefront of this evolving conversation, with the decisions made today shaping the future of data infrastructure across the globe.