Data centers are the physical infrastructure that underpins the multi-billion-dollar AI business. Big Tech companies are spreading a web of new centers across the globe with a single goal in mind: to satisfy the enormous computing needs that their generative AI models require to function.
For over a year, this reporting project has investigated the local impacts of these new-generation infrastructures in three regions: Spain, Mexico, and Chile. It has also examined the role of the authorities, the companies that promote them, and the local communities that coexist with these enormous buildings filled with computers running 24/7.
Through reporting in various languages and formats, we uncover how AI giants are extracting basic resources such as water in areas facing severe droughts, seizing land to build their centers, and using fossil-fueled energy sources to power them.
This is all under a veil of secrecy that, at times, includes the use of shell companies and, in almost all cases, the complicity and collusion of local authorities.
Caption: An aerial image of one of the data centers built by Amazon Web Services in Aragón, Spain. This macro-project will have an energy consumption well above the current demand generated throughout the whole region, becoming one of the biggest data center hubs in Europe. Image by Albert Garcia/El País. 2025.
