Fury mounts over global AI frenzy

As tech firms build data centres worldwide to advance artificial intelligence, vulnerable communities have been hit by blackouts and water shortages

- PAUL MOZURADAM SATARIANO & EMILIANO RODRIGUEZ 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 Maria Nicolas, a resident and mother of two. She has considered moving.

Victor Barcenas, who runs a local health clinic, has stitched up children by flashlight. In December, he was unable to give oxygen toa 54-year-old farmer because the power went out. The patient was rushed toa 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 incommunities around the world.

The US has been at the nexus of adata centre boom, as OpenAl, 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.

Nearly 60 per cent of the 1,244 largest data centres in the world were outside the USas 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 toa New York Times examination.