What you see here is a wetland without water': how the datacentre boom is exacerbating Chile's mega-drought

Quilicura wetland near Santiago has dried into yellowed grass, with activists and a law student linking the change to expanding datacentre water use. The area hosts one of Chile’s largest swamps, partially protected, and now functions as a wetland without water. Quilicura contains the largest concentration of datacentres in Latin America, with 33 operating and 34 more planned. Datacentres consume large volumes of water each year, including an estimate of 1.5 billion litres annually for major facilities. Residents report limited job creation, high power demand, and insufficient environmental offsets. Companies defend their water use, while experts urge sustainable solutions such as relocating some operations to southern Chile to balance tech growth with ecological limits.

"What you see here is a wetland without water, says Vallejos, who has investigated the causes alongside activists from the group Resistencia 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. The Quilicura wetland, which activists say is drying now a wetland without water'. 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 began in 2015, when Google opened its first and largest server room in Latin America, in Quilicura. Since then, five more have been established in the district, operated by Brazilian Ascenty, Chilean Sonda and the US-based Cirion and Microsoft. In a 2022 report, Vallejos estimated that the largest datacentres in the area Ascenty, Google, Microsoft and Sonda consume 1.5bn litres of water annually."

"Google's facilities alone hold water rights allowing the 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 over the past decades due to intensive water use by the region's growing"

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