A Google datacentre in Quilicura, Chile, opened in 2015 as the company's first and largest server room in Latin America. The facility sits in what was once a wetland, now a stretch of dry, yellowed grass. Rodrigo Vallejos, a final-year law student, noticed the change five years ago while observing the Quilicura wetland on the northern outskirts of Santiago. One of Chile's largest swamps, spanning 468.4 hectares and partially protected, was drying up. "What you see here is a wetland without water," says Vallejos, who has investigated the causes alongside activists from Resistência Socioambiental de Quilicura. "I discovered that Quilicura is home to the largest concentration of datacentres in Latin America."
Chile's push to become the regional tech hub now faces backlash as datacentres have drained water from drought-stricken wetlands, consuming billions of litres annually. While companies such as Google and Microsoft defend their water use, residents highlight minimal job creation, high power consumption, and failed environmental offsets. With 33 centres operating and 34 more planned, experts urge sustainable solutions, such as relocating to southern Chile, to balance tech growth with ecological limits.
The Datacentre Boom in Chile
The datacentre boom began in 2015 when Google opened its first Latin American server room in Quilicura. Since then, five more have been established in the district, operated by Brazilian Ascenty, Chilean Sonda, and US-based Cirion and Microsoft. In a 2022 report, Vallejos estimated that the largest datacentres in the area consume 1.5 billion litres of water annually. Google's facilities alone hold water rights allowing extraction of 50 litres per second, roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of 8,500 Chilean households. Studies show that water table levels beneath the Quilicura wetland have dropped alarmingly due to intensive water use by industrial activity amid severe drought. "The worst part is that neither the companies nor the water authorities will say exactly how much water is being extracted from the wetland," Vallejos says.
National Plan and Environmental Costs
The expansion of datacentres in Quilicura is part of a national plan launched last year under former president Gabriel Boric to position Chile as a technological hub for Latin America. The country ranks third, after Brazil and Mexico, in attracting tech investment. "Chile is attractive because of its political stability and fast internet connectivity," says Nicolás Jara, a researcher at Federico Santa María Technical University. However, Jara warns that environmental costs could be high without stronger regulation, as datacentres require large volumes of water for cooling. Water-based systems are cheaper than air-cooling, but datacentres for AI often use up to 10 times more water than those for storage. Studies suggest that 10–50 medium-length responses from ChatGPT consume roughly a 500ml bottle of water. Water use also varies by location; in hot, dry climates, evaporative cooling is less effective.
Mega-Drought and Future Projections
Chile has experienced a mega-drought for more than 15 years. "It is something we are seeing across much of the country," says Pablo Sarricolea, a climatologist at the University of Chile. The effects are most severe in central Santiago, where most datacentres are located. Projections for Quilicura indicate a sharp decline in water availability. "By 2070, annual precipitation is expected to decrease significantly, while average temperatures could rise from 15.6C to 17.4C," Sarricolea says. "I don't think it is a good idea to locate datacentres in areas where water resources are already scarce." He suggests southern Chile, which is water-rich, as a more sustainable location. "In Santiago, datacentres are likely to put further pressure on water availability and exacerbate climate change impacts. It also becomes an ethical problem: are we giving priority in water access for tech companies or people?"
Company Responses and Community Concerns
A Microsoft spokesperson says its Chilean datacentres use air-based cooling technologies requiring less water for humidification, and the company is advancing water restoration projects in the Maipo basin. Ascenty says its datacentres use air-cooled chiller systems, with annual water use equivalent to 16 households, and that operations do not impact the surrounding wetland. Cirion, Google, and Sonda did not reply to requests for comment. According to Google's 2024 environmental report, its Quilicura datacentre used approximately 461 million litres of water, which the company says equals less than the annual consumption of a golf course.
Beyond water use, datacentres raise concerns over high energy demand. Studies estimate that by 2032, Chile's electricity consumption could increase more than fourfold, from 325MW to about 1,207MW. In Quilicura, datacentres already account for 62% of the community's power consumption. About 80% of Chile's energy mix comes from renewable sources, but many datacentres still rely on fossil-fuel-powered backup generators, raising carbon emission concerns.
Activist and Community Pushback
Alexandra Arancibia, an activist and councillor in Quilicura, says she is disappointed by the tech industry's lack of accountability. "A decade ago, Google arrived with fanfare and slogans like 'Google, my neighbour', but its presence in the community has been minimal," she says. The number of jobs created has been limited; Google's Quilicura server room required 1,000 workers during construction and employs 208 people in operation. More concerning is the lack of transparency around environmental impact. "When we learned about the scale of their water consumption, we invited company representatives to community council meetings and asked how they planned to address the impacts. They did not have clear answers," Arancibia says. Google's main mitigation effort was creating an urban park in 2019, promising to plant 1,500 native trees to offset 150% of the environmental impact of its 2018 datacentre expansion. "The project has been a failure. The vegetation has dried out, the paths are not maintained, and there is no irrigation," she says.
Quilicura's experience has raised alarms in other parts of Santiago. In 2024, residents in Cerrillos succeeded in halting plans for a second Google datacentre. "In 2019, we learned about the project in our community. When we realised the scale of water it would require, we became alarmed," says Tania Rodríguez, a teacher. Google had secured water rights allowing extraction of up to 228 litres per second, roughly equivalent to the consumption of 40,000 households, from Cerrillos's groundwater reserves. Residents succeeded in having the project halted on grounds that it failed to adequately consider climate crisis impacts. The company agreed to review its cooling system. The project is now on hold, with the environmental authority requesting further studies. "We don't need more datacentres here taking our water so that people in the global north can draw funny pictures on AI," Rodríguez says.
Political and Regulatory Challenges
Calls for stricter environmental regulation of datacentres are likely to face resistance under the new rightwing government of President Antonio Kast. During his campaign, he promoted the slogan "Less regulation, more investment." On his first day in office in March, he withdrew 43 environmental decrees. "The weakening of environmental evaluation standards already began under the previous government, but Kast has taken it further, leaving us without a floor," says Pamela Poo, a policy expert at the NGO Ecosur Fundación. Activists like Rodrigo Vallejos say this must change. "I'm not demonising datacentres," he says. "We all love the internet – but not at the cost of our water."
