Long-term drought in Latin America prompts Google to adjust its data center construction plans in the region

Reports indicate that Google plans to invest approximately $200 million to build the largest data center in Latin America in the suburbs of the capital city of Santiago. However, the operation of this project will require a significant amount of water resources. This is because the cooling system for the high-frequency processor circuits in the data center, which generate heat from billions of transistors, needs water for heat dissipation. It is reported that the cooling system in the center will consume 7 billion liters of water annually, equivalent to the water usage of about 80,000 residents in the suburbs of Santiago for a year. In September, Google announced a new cooling mode for its data center in Chile, using a more expensive air cooling technology to reduce water consumption