Large companies planning to install artificial intelligence data centers in the Global South are not measuring how much water they need to operate. This could put Latin American countries affected by drought in difficulty.
Every minute, millions of people use an artificial intelligence tool or ask questions of chatbots, such as ChatGPT . AND Although many perceive that AI It is something that does not exist in a tangible form, the reality is that it has a physical form in the real world and threatens the sustainability of the planet.
To make the use of AI possible, real infrastructure, fuel and manpower are needed: Data centers, where information from this technology is stored and processed, require too many natural resources to operate.
Consequently, for some time The debate began over whether AI would be the next big pillar of world destruction, not because of a possible invasion of intelligent robots, but because of the cost of electricity and water. that it needs to function.
To get a better idea, depending on The New York Times , “A ChatGPT query requires almost 10 times more electricity than a normal Google search.”
And now, as water is also an essential resource for technology and chatbots to function, the media Wired warned that Several data centers are being installed in the countries of the South, that is to say in countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
This is a worrying situation for countries in the southern hemisphere, because Water is scarce, even for other vital functions of society, so AI could be more of a problem than a solution.
How Artificial Intelligence Data Centers Work
As explained Wired, The “backbone of the AI industry,” namely data centers and “clouds,” is “rocks, lithium in brine, crude oil, water, and of course , energy”.
It is about giant infrastructures and installations that must meet the colossal energy, cooling and storage needs required by artificial intelligence.
To do this, the facilities have luxury equipment: you have to imagine rooms full of GPUs (like the components of a conventional computer), cables, circuitry and complex cooling systems by air in racks that require a lot of electricity to maintain the ideal temperature.
According to the International Energy Agency , Global data center electricity consumption is approximately 460 terawatt hours (TWh) and by 2026 this figure is expected to reach 1,000 TWh.
To get an idea of the scale, Total electricity consumption across France in 2022 was 459 TWh.
According to information from Observer , Large companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI have their data centers in the United States, Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg, China, Japan, Australia and Brazil.
However, now Wired warned that It is planned to install these plants in several countries in the South, particularly in Latin America.
The plan to install AI data centers in Latin America
Querétaro, one of the fastest growing states in Mexico, is creating 26 data centers. Some of them are even already operational, according to Marco Antonio Del Prete, Mexican Secretary of Sustainable Development.
Neverthelessthe energy demand of all these installations will be 600 megawatts and will represent “investments which will exceed 10 billion dollars in the next 10 years”.
These plants They will also need a lot of water to function . And in doing so, municipalities near Querétaro, facing a severe drought, could be affected.
For exampleColón, a municipality where Microsoft’s first large-scale data center campus was installed in Mexico, has its main water dams almost dry farmers struggle to water their crops and families can only rely on bottled water they carry from other parts of the country.
And even if welcoming large companies that invest and contribute to the development of the continent’s cities is good news, The problem is that “most data center operators still do not monitor their impact on water consumption, carbon emissions or e-waste management.” reads a survey on Availability Institute .
So far, according to the organization’s annual global report, Most large companies simply monitor and make transparent their electricity consumption, but barely track water consumption, carbon emissions, or e-waste disposal.
That would work against sustainability discourses and practices that they claim to have.
“If true, the climate impact of two-thirds of data centers is not effectively controlled,” they write. Wired.
Another country that could be affected by the arrival of data centers in Latin America would be Uruguay. : Google has assured that its future data center in the capital, Montevideo, requires 7.6 million liters of drinking water per day to operate.
Nevertheless, The country has been experiencing a historic drought for three years.
Faced with this situation, some governments have already started to limit new data center installations : For example, in Singapore, this infrastructure represented 7% of the country’s electricity demand in 2020, so the authorities began to impose restrictions.
But The problem of consumption of natural AI resources would be worse in developing countries.
According to the UNCTAD agency of UN for trade and development, “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by environmental damage. »
This is why a call has been launched to question the economic and environmental sustainability of the investments proposed by AI companies, since At least in Latin America, they could end up revealing a serious water crisis, which is getting worse and worse due to global warming and climate change.
Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
