Drought forces Big Tech to rethink thirsty LatAm data centres

Aerial view of a data centre owned by Google in Santiago on Oct 9, 2024. The drought that is affecting part of South America, coupled with public pressure, is forcing technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to reformulate their data centre projects in the region in favor of low-water consumption ones. — AFP

SANTIAGO: A prolonged drought in much of South America has forced tech giants like Google and Amazon to rework their plans for water-guzzling data centres.

Data centres housing huge servers are springing up around the world to store the flood of data sucked up from billions of smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.