Querétaro, a scenic colonial-era city in central Mexico, is becoming known as the country’s data centre capital. Querétaro is home to an extraordinary stone aqueduct and a pulsating cultural life. The unprecedented influx of data centres is provoking the ire of critics concerned with such aggressive water consumption in a state already facing a water crisis. Local activist Teresa Roldán has expressed her opposition. She feels the needs of these facilities are being favored over the needs of the community.
The demand for technology and data storage continues to grow at an exponentially high rate. As a consequence, Querétaro has turned into a key destination for national and foreign technological industries. Ascenty, which calls itself Latin America’s largest data centre company, has opened two showstopping data centres in the city. Each facility covers roughly 20,000 square feet and they’re currently in development on a third location. Arturo Bravo, country manager of Ascenty, pointed to Querétaro’s strategic location. As he put it, “Querétaro is smack dab in the middle [of the government], connecting the east, west, north and south.” This geographic advantage has drawn other companies as they look to cash in on the region’s connectivity.
Though water has taken on greater importance in the tech world as well, local governments are under rising pressure from constituents worried about how water is distributed. Roldán underscored the need to put communities ahead of bottled water and fracking. She noted that the city’s water distribution practices disproportionately benefit the private sector and encouraged this practice.
“This is a state that is already facing a crisis that is so complex and doesn’t have enough water for human disposal. The priority should be water for basic means…that’s what we need to guarantee and then maybe think if there are some resources available for any other economic activity. There has been a conflict of interest on public water policy for the last two decades.”
The fast growth of Mexico City’s data centres reflects a wider pattern across Mexico and the world. Shaolei Ren, the associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California Riverside who has been a major force behind this trend, noted an important trend. The increasing need for artificial intelligence (AI) is driving an historic data center building boom.
“The demand for AI is accelerating the construction of data centres at an unprecedented speed,” Ren explained.
Now, in addition to meeting infrastructural needs, firms are working to overcome environmental challenges. Furthermore, data centres in Querétaro employ outdoor air as the primary cooling medium 95% of the time! This one practice reduces their water use by 60 percent! For the other 5%, these facilities cannot afford to do anything but use evaporative cooling approaches. Ascenty uses a closed-loop system where the water is continually circulated through large chillers. According to the company, 72% of the freshwater used comes from sources deemed “low risk of water depletion or scarcity.”
Local activists feel that these steps don’t go nearly far enough. They go on to claim that worries about water consumption in this extremely dry region continue to go ignored. A government spokesperson explained that there is no legal framework for municipal authorities to prioritize or channel water toward industrial use.
“We have always said and reiterated that the water is for citizen consumption, not for industry. The municipality has zero faculties to water allocation and even less to assign water quality,” the spokesperson stated.
The conflict between industrial development and community priorities is very real. Residents have voiced concerns in the past about what they see as inequitable access to water. Residents largely feel as though private industries are getting favored treatment in water allocation at the expense of local communities.
“Private industries are being prioritised in these arid zones,” an anonymous source mentioned.
Roldán made the same point, emphasizing that the public is getting poorer quality water delivered to their tap than what is delivered to polluting industries. “We hear that there’s going to be 32 data centres but water is what’s needed for the people, not for these industries,” she stated.
As things continue to move forward, fears over sustainability have become a prominent issue. The topic of resource management is still very relevant when discussing Querétaro’s transformation into a technology hub. Striking the right balance between spurring economic development and providing enough resources for both new and existing residents is a huge challenge for local government.
Arturo Bravo of Ascenty defended the company’s commitment to operating responsibly and within community guidelines.
“We operate under the terms and conditions specified by authorities, which, in turn, in my perspective, are the ones taking care of the fact that those conditions are acceptable for the communities around and the health of everybody,” Bravo remarked.
Now, technology companies have been descending upon Querétaro, looking for stable energy sources. This dramatic increase has placed significant strain on local water supplies, necessitating immediate action by local policy-makers. According to Ren, constraints on power grid capacity across the United States are driving technology companies to search for their own electricity. They’re actively looking for energy sources on-site at every opportunity.
“The power grid capacity constraint in the US is pushing tech companies to find available power anywhere they can,” he noted.