“We saw a state apparatus completely subordinated to corporate interests”
As India rapidly expands its data-centre infrastructure and courts AI investment, it is also creating increasingly favourable conditions for global technology companies. Most recently, Andhra Pradesh attracted international attention by granting Google’s planned 1 GW data centre project a rare “deemed DISCOM” licence, allowing the company to procure and manage electricity within its project area and thereby reducing one of the key uncertainties facing large-scale data centre investments.
While the long-term implications of this regulatory shift remain unclear, communities in other emerging data-centre markets are already grappling with the consequences of rapid infrastructure expansion. With an estimated US$60-$70 billion expected to be invested in India’s data centre market over the next five years and growing concerns over its environmental impacts, it is worth examining how regulatory frameworks are evolving in countries that already adopted national data centre plans in 2024 and rank among the strongest markets in the region, such as Chile. One of the most successful resistance campaigns emerged in Cerrillos, a municipality on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile. After learning of Google’s proposed $200 million data centre project in 2019, local residents formed MOSACAT (Socio-Environmental Community Movement for Land and Water) that ultimately forced Google to abandon its original plans. Seven years later, the data centre has still not been built. The conflict unfolded against the backdrop of Central Chile’s most severe drought since 2010 and growing concerns over water use. Cerrillos sits above an important aquifer that supplies local communities, making Google’s original water-intensive cooling plans particularly controversial.
In this interview, Down To Earth speaks with MOSACAT members Rodrigo Cavieres, a journalist, and former teacher Tania Rodríguez, who was named to TIME’s 2024 list of the world’s most influential people in AI. Together, they reflect on how the campaign unfolded, what it revealed about decision-making around data centres at the national level, and what lessons countries such as India should consider as they pursue their own AI infrastructure ambitions.
Rosali Rüsberg (RR): From MOSACAT’s perspective, what were the main implications of the data centre project for the community Cerrillos?
Tania Rodríguez: In general, when we started studying the data centre project—because in 2019, a data centre was completely new to us—the first thing we looked at was the water. It was a huge amount. They had 169 litres per second, and they had also purchased water rights for 228 litres per second. So, we feared that they would start with 169 litres per second and then expand to 228 litres per second. That was the main concern and there we started reading further and began to understand more as an organisation. We also had a base of local residents that supported us, signed petitions, and together, both the residents and us, we paid for a lawyer. And when we started talking with Google, we already knew about the large amounts of diesel they stored, all the externalities, the noise, the vibrations, and also the issue of energy, which is something that concerns us greatly. However, the residents who formed the assembly supporting us told us: “Look, the only thing we want is for Google not to use water.” That’s what we told Google. We had internal discussions about it, but we tried to be democratic and to represent the residents’ views on this issue.
RR: How would you describe the regulatory context in which the project developed?
Tania Rodríguez: It was quite a bit, we viewed it with considerable suspicion. First, the local intermediary company Dataluna speaking on behalf of Google approached our local authorities and asked them to keep it confidential, so that the public would not know anything about it. We have a recording from a municipal council meeting, where a councillor said to the mayor: “Listen, you told us it was a good project. They asked us to keep it confidential. The people from Google asked us for confidentiality.” The second thing that seemed suspicious to us was that it did not go through an Environmental Impact Study. That would have been the appropriate route because, in our view, the project met the conditions set out in Chile’s environmental law (Art. 11), which requires a full Environmental Impact Assessment for projects that may significantly affect natural resources such as water. That was what we argued. Instead, it entered through an Environmental Impact Declaration, which is a faster process. Well, all data centres were entering through declarations at the time. Now they will not even need to enter through a declaration.
To better understand the significance of this decision, Rodrigo Cavieres explained what distinguishes the two forms of environmental assessment under Chilean law. An Environmental Impact Study requires a detailed baseline assessment of existing environmental conditions, an evaluation of likely impacts, measures to prevent or mitigate, and a process of citizen participation. To explain what this means in practice, he referred to the example of a hydroelectric project in an area inhabited by pudús, a small native deer species. Before construction could proceed, developers would have to document where the animals live and move and assess how the project might affect them. Environmental Impact Declarations, by contrast, do not require citizen participation and the same level of baseline research, making them a less rigorous form of assessment.
The third thing that seemed suspicious was the changes relating to the water rights they purchased. According to a neighbour who had worked for many years at Chile’s water authority (DGA), such procedures normally take a long time, yet in this case they moved unusually quickly. During the environmental review, the DGA took a critical view and requested additional information on water impact. However, after a regional ban on new groundwater extractions was introduced amid a drought and fears of water rationing in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, the water authority withdrew its earlier reservations, so that the project received environmental approval on February 25.
The last thing was when we spoke with Google in the United States and convinced them to stop using the water-cooling system. So they switched to air cooling, but they submitted that change through a procedure that allowed them to modify the project without undergoing a new environmental assessment. At the same time, they also changed the amount of diesel they planned to store on site. Strangely, that happened two or three years before the Environmental Assessment Service modified the diesel limits in a way that closely matched what Google had already done. So, they were incredibly visionary. They knew what was coming in the country’s regulations and adapted to the rules in order to avoid having to undergo any kind of study. So, all of this seems very much colluded.
But later on, during this government and the previous one, speaking about institutions and the role of the state, we had a minister called Aisén Etcheverry who was responsible for developing a National Data Centre Plan in Chile and who, as we later discovered, was acting entirely under a mandate from the companies. The matter went before the Comptroller General’s Office. Investigations were carried out, and it turned out that she had worked for Amazon for many years. So there was a whole series of deceptions directed at the public and a manipulation of state institutions so that this strategy of turning Chile into a digital hub could be implemented.
RR: How would you describe the level of participation of local actors in the decision-making process of the data centre construction?
Tania Rodríguez: In the National Data Centre Plan developed by the Boric government in 2024, they invited all stakeholders. We were invited to join a working group that was supposedly going to include the companies, all state bodies, and social organisations. We were the only social organisation directly opposed to data centres. We decided to participate because we said: “It is better to be there than not to be there.” However, there were some key principles that we were not willing to compromise on. These included not using water, ensuring transparency of information, and around nine other principles. But we attended many meetings where we were given absolutely no information. They would not tell us where the facilities would be located, who the owners were, or how many data centres were planned. Nor did we ever meet with the data centre companies. We learned about additional projects through the press. They used those spaces to meet among themselves and form associations. Connectivity companies, the data centres already operating in Chile, and those planning to come all organised together, and the ministries met with them.
In the end we realised that our questions led nowhere. We felt they were using us to validate the process. After that, we continued participating in public consultations. We attended a lobbying meeting with the Ministry of Energy and of Science, where they asked us to participate in a multi-stakeholder committee. For that meeting, they told us that only one person from our organisation could attend.
We saw a state apparatus completely subordinated to corporate interests. It was shocking to see that even people from the Ministry of National Assets (the institution responsible for managing state-owned land in Chile) had worked for these data-centre companies. They had identified a section of northern Chile, where it is extremely hot and where we have the driest
desert in the world, and they had found the best land for these companies to invest in and build data centres. We were the only environmental organisation present. That corrupt minister Aisén Etcheverry spoke about the amount of jobs that data centres supposedly create. I was the only person openly opposing it. It was sad to see that the Ministry of Environment did not even speak.
RR: And in your opinion, who benefits from the construction of data centres?
Tania Rodríguez: No matter how much they try to tell us that the benefits arise for Chileans or for local people, we know that they only create very few jobs, and even fewer skilled jobs. So, we have been fed a series of fallacies. The direct beneficiaries are in the Global North. They need those data centres. We know this with certainty because officials from the Ministry of Science told us so when we submitted questions that our country’s demand has already been met. So, we do not need any more data centres. That is why it makes us so angry that they continue intervening in our territories in this way.
Rodrigo Cavieres: I also think data centres benefit the companies that have the money to build these large facilities. So first of all, before the artificial intelligence boom, data centres were much smaller. The few large data centres had a strong geopolitical component. For example, the Snowden revelations showed that data stored and managed by large technology companies could also become part of geopolitical struggles and surveillance practices. Nowadays, artificial intelligence and data centres are being used to identify migrants in the United States. There is a very fascist component within this industry.
And additionally, with the rise of artificial intelligence, data no longer serves only a geopolitical function. Data has become a component of capital. More than ever, data is being accumulated, and services are being sold on the basis of that accumulation. All of this information is analysed, as happens with chatbots. So these large data centres primarily benefit large corporations.
The National Data Centre Plan was presented as something connected to science, when in reality it was purely commercial. I do not know to what extent it was naivety or to what extent it was a deliberate strategy on the part of Gabriel Boric’s government when they said: “Right, we are going to develop a National Data Centre Plan through the Ministry of Science.” They did not do it through the Ministry of Environment or of Economy. In the way it was presented, they were essentially telling the public: “We see this technology, this industry, only through a scientific lens. We do not see the process of data extraction that is transformed into capital. We do not see the corporate interest in profiting from this system.” There is no other way to claim that they exist for science. Scientists have their own servers and their own artificial intelligence models. So there is a colonial dynamic in the way progress is sold through the language of science.
RR: What advice would you give to countries such as India that are already facing climate-related challenges and are aiming to become leaders in the data centre industry?
Rodrigo Cavieres: I think there has to be a regulatory process. Countries should have evaluation processes with binding community participation. In other words, if communities say, “I do not want this to be built here”, then that decision should be enforced. Data centres
should be included within an environmental assessment process with rules on how much water and energy they can use and in which zones they can be installed. I was reading, for example, that in other countries they are building coal plants right next door to supply themselves with energy. So I think that also becomes part of the community conflict. And I also think there has to be regulation regarding how data is being accumulated. So one thing is the regulation of the infrastructure, and the other is regulation concerning how it operates as a company: whether they share data, whether they are selling it, what the intellectual rights are over the stored data. And they should have to pay for those rights. And all of that should also be covered by legislation.
Tania Rodríguez: I would tell them that they are selling us a complete lie. A data centre is essentially a warehouse for data, but one that requires enormous amounts of electricity and, in many cases, water. And where do you get the electricity? It needs additional infrastructure, such as electrical substations and energy projects. So a data centre is never just a single project. On top, the promised employment benefits are minimal. At most, a super-large facility might employ around 60 people, and only a small percentage of them are specialised workers who receive good pay. The rest are people who cut the grass or during the year it takes to build, they will employ a number of workers, though it is precarious work. Then, it has been proven that within a ten-kilometre radius of the data centre, temperatures can rise by around nine degrees. It creates a heat island. Countries may need data centres to store their own data. But then it has to have them, maintain them, and sustain them. But we should not be the Third World that stores and holds the data for the rest of the Global North. We also know from our discussions with these companies that they are not required to disclose what data is being stored or who owns them. Usually it is banks, but it could also be arms companies. So that is sensitive information, and as a territory we are exposed to the possibility that someone might come and set it on fire or do whatever they want. Because these are data that move the global economic system. So there is nothing that appears positive about it.
As of today, MOSACAT remains active, although the group has increasingly broadened its focus beyond its core agenda on data centres to defend basic environmental legislation, which has been eroded by successive governments. While they insist that technological development is not inherently opposed, they demand regulatory frameworks that account for environmental impact. The fight continues, sustained by the experience of collective organising.