AI Data Centers Create Fury From Mexico to Ireland

The United States has been at the nexus of a data center boom, as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others invest hundreds of billions to build the giant computing sites in the name of advancing artificial intelligence. But the companies have also exported the construction frenzy abroad, with less scrutiny.

Nearly 60 percent of the 1,244 largest data centers in the world were outside the United States 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 center projects in development globally from companies including Tencent, Meta and Alibaba.

As data centers 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 centers 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 centers 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 centers, masking their presence and revealing little about the resources that the facilities consume.

Many governments are eager for an A.I. 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 centers to power new A.I. models and create “superintelligence,” or A.I. 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 center 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 centers in the Americas. “We will always prioritize the basic needs of the community.”

Electric grid infrastructure has been problematic in central Mexico and caused blackouts, said Alejandro Sterling, the director of industrial development for the region. “Our capacity has been overdrawn,” he said.

Directly linking any data center 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 organizations have banded together to oppose data centers. Some have tried blocking the projects, while others have pushed for more oversight and transparency.

In Ireland, authorities have limited new data centers in the Dublin area because of “significant risk” to power supplies. After activists protested in Chile, Google withdrew plans to build a center that could have depleted water reserves. In the Netherlands, construction was halted on some data centers over environmental concerns.

“Data centers are where environmental and social issues meet,” said Rosi Leonard, an environmentalist with Friends of the Earth Ireland. “You have this narrative that data centers are needed and will make us rich and thriving, but this is a real crisis.”

In Mexico, residents said data center 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 wash their hands or maintain basic hygiene. The disease spread quickly, and about 50 people got sick, Dr. Bárcenas said.

“I blame the state governments for failing to negotiate support for the community,” he said. “Microsoft’s project involved millions of dollars of investment, and none of it went to us, to the people.”

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 center for an unnamed tech company five years ago. Environmental groups and locals have filed legal objections and appeals to block the project.

Not long ago, such a plan probably would have sailed through. 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 centers are clustered around Dublin and dot the countryside beyond. A third of the country’s electricity is expected to go to data centers in the next few years, up from 5 percent in 2015.

But Ireland’s welcoming mood has soured. The country has become one of the clearest examples of the transnational backlash against data centers.

That opposition gained momentum in 2021 when an environmental socialist group, People Before Profit, protested at a data center conference in Dublin. Around the same time, residents in County Clare, where Ennis is, challenged the proposed facility that would be built on farmland.

Since then, a protest movement has grown. Local residents, including the best-selling author Sally Rooney, have raised concerns. Last year, Darragh Adelaide, an activist with People Before Profit, was elected to the South Dublin County Council, which later rejected a data center application from Google.

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 centers,” said Sinéad Sheehan, an activist who organized 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 center,” Ms. Gómez Delgado said. “We’re coordinated. We’re talking to each other all the time.”

She and her colleagues said they realized it would be an uphill fight. In Ireland, even with limitations on data centers near Dublin, the authorities are trying to expedite the approvals of other sites in rural areas like County Clare and County Mayo. Many in the business community support further development.

Environmentalists in Ireland have lost appeals against data center construction in courts, but hope their actions will deter companies. On Sept. 30, about 50 people protested outside Dublin’s Parliament against more data centers.

A final legal appeal against the Ennis data center still must be heard. Even if the project is greenlit, its future is in question. Amazon recently revealed it was behind the project and had pulled out, meaning the local developer will need to find another tech company to partner with.

“We are committed to being a good neighbor, so we spend a lot of time listening to and understanding a community’s needs and priorities,” the company said in a statement.

Welcoming policies

It is a refrain echoed, if often less bluntly, by officials elsewhere as they woo tech companies. Brazil is creating new tax breaks. Malaysia carved out an industrial zone to attract Chinese and Silicon Valley firms. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia ran a diplomatic campaign to get support from President Trump to buy prized A.I. chips that companies need. The European Union has vowed to spend billions on new regional data centers.

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 and data,” he said.

Government support worldwide has helped tech firms build with little accountability, said Ana Valdivia, an Oxford University lecturer studying data center development. Few environmental regulations were designed for data centers, and the companies often demand some level of secrecy from governments.

In Mexico, Mr. Sterling described an ambitious growth plan that would quadruple total electricity use from data centers 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 center is owned and operated by Ascenty, a Latin American data center company. In Ireland, the would-be Amazon data center was developed by a firm called Art Data Centres.

Data centers “use a lot of water, they don’t waste a lot of water,” Mr. Sterling said.

Teresa Roldán, an activist in Mexico, said she was skeptical of a new proposal in Querétaro to recycle sewage for public drinking water. The government has said the plan would serve citizens and industry, but data center companies already have direct access to groundwater, she said. Residents would end up with filtered sewage water, she said.

‘All the electricity’

Microsoft’s data center 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 centers arrived in Querétaro about five years ago, drawn by proximity to the United States, 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.

Impoverished small towns in the area, which have struggled with basic services, began experiencing longer water shortages and more blackouts, according to more than a dozen residents.

“There are patients with kidney failure who need their machines for treatment,” said Manuel Rodríguez, a local government representative. “There are people with diabetes who need to keep their medication refrigerated.”

Mexico’s national power company attributed recent outages to lightning strikes and stray animals running into equipment.

Residents have been hit financially by the power and water disruptions. In Viborillas, a town near the data centers, Elizabeth Sánchez and her neighbors began experiencing water outages in June 2024. They now split a $60 fee for private water trucks.

Ms. 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,” Ms. Sánchez said, adding that a part-time job as a courier has helped defray the costs.

Dulce María Nicolás, 30, the mother of two in Las Cenizas who owns a convenience store, said the blackouts had twice forced her to dump rotting food from her family refrigerator this summer, while prolonged water cuts pushed her to buy more jugs for storing water.

“It’s a double cost,” she said. Her children have gotten stomach bugs when the family cannot wash dishes properly, and school has been canceled when the toilets did not flush.

The children were focused mostly on the electricity outages, which deprived them of their phones. “Technology is all he sees,” she said of her 11-year-old.

The timing of the problems — after Microsoft’s data center complex became operational — pointed to one culprit, Ms. Nicolás said. “They have all the electricity,” she said of the tech company. “I’m left with nothing.”

Selam Gebrekidan contributed reporting from Hong Kong.