‘What you see here is a wetland without water’: how the datacentre boom is exacerbating Chile’s mega-drought
Summary
Chile’s wetlands near Santiago are drying up due to heavy water use by many data centres in the area. These centres use large amounts of water to cool their servers, which worsens the country’s long-lasting drought and raises environmental concerns.Key Facts
- Quilicura wetland near Santiago, once a large swamp, is drying up and losing water.
- The area hosts the largest group of data centres in Latin America, with 33 operating and 34 more planned.
- Data centres use water-based cooling systems that consume billions of liters of water each year.
- Major companies with data centres there include Google, Microsoft, Ascenty, and Sonda.
- Google’s data centres alone have rights to extract water equivalent to the yearly use of 8,500 households.
- The exact amount of water used by data centres is unclear due to a lack of transparency.
- Chile has faced a mega-drought lasting over 15 years, making water scarcity a serious problem.
- Experts suggest moving data centres to southern Chile or improving water efficiency to protect resources.
Read the Full Article
This is a fact-based summary from The Actual News. Click below to read the complete story directly from the original source.