 "data centre, AI")
By Paul MozurAdam Satariano & Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
When Microsoft opened a data centre in central Mexico last year, nearby residents said power cuts became more frequent. Water outages, which once lasted days, stretched for weeks.
The shortages led to school cancellations and the spread of stomach bugs in the town of Las Cenizas, said Dulce María Nicolás, a resident and mother of two. She has considered moving.
Víctor Bárcenas, who runs a local health clinic, has stitched up children by flashlight. In December, he was unable to give oxygen to a 54-year-old farmer because the power went out. The patient was rushed to a hospital nearly an hour away. Their experiences are being echoed elsewhere, as an artificial intelligence (AI) building boom strains already fragile power and water infrastructures in communities around the world.
The US has been at the nexus of a data centre boom, as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others invest hundreds of billions to build the giant computing sites in the name of advancing AI. But the companies have also exported the construction frenzy abroad, with less scrutiny.
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Nearly 60 per cent of the 1,244 largest data centres in the world were outside the US as of the end of June, according to an analysis by Synergy Research Group, which studies the industry. More are coming, with at least 575 data centre projects in development globally from firms including Tencent, Meta, and Alibaba.
As data centres rise, the sites — which need vast amounts of power for computing and water to cool the computers — have contributed to or exacerbated disruptions not only in Mexico, but in more than a dozen other countries, according to a New York Times examination.
In Ireland, data centres consume more than 20 percent of the country’s electricity. In Chile, precious aquifers are in danger of depletion. In South Africa, where blackouts have long been routine, data centres are further taxing the national grid. Similar concerns have surfaced in Brazil, Britain, India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Spain.
The issues have been compounded by a lack of transparency. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and other tech companies often work through subsidiaries and service providers to build data centres, masking their presence and revealing little about the resources that the facilities consume. Many governments are eager for an AI foothold, too. They have provided cheap land, tax breaks and access to resources and are taking a hands-off approach to regulation and disclosures.
Tech companies, which are racing to build data centres to power new AI models and create “superintelligence,” or AI with power that exceeds the human brain, said the boom brought jobs and investment. They added that they were working to shrink their environmental footprint by generating their own energy and recycling water.
Microsoft said it had no information that its data centre complex in central Mexico had affected power and water supplies. Electricity is unstable there, the company said. It added that it used minimal water and had an electricity load of up to 12.6 megawatts, which if used throughout the year would be the equivalent of what could power roughly 50,000 homes in Mexico.
“We looked deeply and found no indication that our data centers have contributed to blackouts or water shortages in the region,” said Bowen Wallace, Microsoft corporate vice-president for data centres in the Americas.
Directly linking any data centre to local power and water shortages is difficult. Yet building in areas with unstable grids and existing water strains has pressured already frail systems, according to experts, increasing the potential for cascading effects.
In country after country, activists, residents and environmental organisations have banded together to oppose data centres. Some have tried blocking the projects, while others have pushed for more oversight and transparency.
In Ireland, authorities have limited new data centres in the Dublin area because of “significant risk” to power supplies. After activists protested in Chile, Google withdrew plans to build a centre that could have depleted water reserves. In the Netherlands, construction was halted on some data centres over environmental concerns.
In Mexico, residents said data centre development should come with more investment in their communities. In the village of La Esperanza, near Microsoft’s site, there was a hepatitis outbreak this summer. Water outages left residents unable to maintain basic hygiene. The disease spread quickly, and about 50 people got sick, Bárcenas said.
An environmental movement
Horses roam the 150 acres of open fields in the town of Ennis in western Ireland, which a developer began trying to turn into a four-billion-euro data centre for an unnamed tech company five years ago. Environmental groups and locals have filed legal objections and appeals to block the project.
For two decades, Ireland rolled out the red carpet for tech. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and TikTok made the country their European base, and about 120 data centres are clustered around Dublin and dot the countryside beyond.
A third of the country’s electricity is expected to go to data centres in the next few years, up from 5 per cent in 2015.
But Ireland’s welcoming mood has soured. The country has become one of the clearest examples of the transnational backlash against data centres. In January, storms caused power outages across western Ireland, fueling debates over whether the grid was at a breaking point.
“There’s a reason why the grid is under strain, and it’s because of the disproportionate number of data centres,” said Sinéad Sheehan, an activist who organised a petition against the Ennis project that was signed by more than 1,000 people.
In Spain, Aurora Gómez Delgado, an environmentalist who protested a Meta facility near Madrid in 2023, was stunned when messages of support poured in from abroad. Today she coordinates with dozens of groups worldwide. Her group, Tu Nube Seca Mi Río (Your Cloud Dries Up My River), helped inspire the creation of another group in France. “There’s nowhere that doesn’t have a data centre,” Gómez Delgado said. “We’re coordinated. We’re talking to each other all the time.”
Environmentalists in Ireland have lost appeals against data centre construction in courts, but hope their actions will deter companies. On September 30, about 50 people protested outside Dublin’s Parliament against more data centres. A final legal appeal against the Ennis data centre still must be heard. Amazon recently revealed it was behind the project and had pulled out, meaning the local developer will need to find another tech firm to partner with. “We are committed to being a good neighbour, so we spend a lot of time listening to and understanding a community’s needs and priorities,” the company said.
Welcoming policies
In a gleaming office tower wrapped in solar panels and a 3D LED screen in the city of Querétaro in central Mexico, an official spearheading the country’s transformation into a data centre hub said interruptions to power and water were the price of progress.
“Those are happy problems,” said Sterling, the director of industrial development for Querétaro, where many of Mexico’s 110 data centres are. “Not for the people that suffer it, but for the development of the place.”
Darragh O’Brien, Ireland’s minister for climate, energy and the environment, said construction was migrating to countries with the most welcoming policies. “A very important part of our industrial strategy is being at the leading edge of new technologies,” he said.
Government support worldwide has helped tech firms build with little accountability, said Ana Valdivia, an Oxford University lecturer studying data centre development. Few environmental norms were designed for data centres, and the firms often demand some level of secrecy from governments.
In Mexico, Sterling described an ambitious growth plan that would quadruple total electricity use from data centres to 1.5 gigawatts over the next five years, roughly the amount used by 1.25 million American homes. Nondisclosure agreements with tech companies were needed to win the deals, he said, and he was required to keep information from communities and Mexico’s electricity utility. “I signed that NDA as a public service,” he said.
Project operators are often camouflaged through subsidiaries or outside contractors. In Mexico, at least one Microsoft data centre is owned and operated by Ascenty, a Latin American data center company. In Ireland, the would-be Amazon data centre was developed by a firm called Art Data Centres.
All the electricity
Microsoft’s data centre complex in central Mexico rises more than 800 feet atop a hill in the high mesquite plains north of Mexico City. It is prime land. Locals, including Indigenous groups, had long grazed animals at a natural spring there. Today, the space is fenced off. Drone footage shows a new reservoir inside, surrounded by fresh dirt.
Data centres arrived in Querétaro about five years ago, drawn by proximity to the US, relative safety from drug violence and a local government eager to welcome multinationals. Microsoft came first, followed by Amazon and Google. Soon, industrial parks buzzed with construction crews.
Sánchez, a 39-year-old homemaker, has also tossed spoiled food after electricity outages. A recent blackout fried her daughter’s computer and the refrigerator. “We can’t keep up, so we adapt,” Sánchez said, adding that a part-time job as a courier has helped defray the costs.
The timing of the problems — after Microsoft’s data centre complex became operational — pointed to one culprit, Nicolás said. “They have all the electricity,” she said of the tech company. “I’m left with nothing.”
©2025 The New York Times News Service
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