AI data centers are draining water from this drought-stricken Mexican town
As the climate crisis intensifies, billions of poor and working people around the world are suffering from lack of regular (or any) access to clean water, but the dawn of \u201cAI\u201d is about to make the problem much worse. In their recent report for Context, \u201cForget jobs\u2014AI is coming for your water,\u201d Diana Baptista and Fintan McDonnell write, \u201cArtificial intelligence lives on power and water, fed to it in vast quantities by data centres around the world. And those centres are increasingly located in the global south.\u201d In Col\xf3n, a municipality in Central Mexico that is home to Microsoft\u2019s first hyperscale data center campus in the country, working people are already bearing the environmental costs of man-made climate change, and they will be the ones to bear the costs of AI and Big Tech. \u201cThe town of 67,000 is suffering extreme drought. Its two dams have nearly dried up, farmers are struggling with dead crops, and families are relying on trucked and bottled water to fulfill their daily needs.\u201d In the latest installment of our ongoing series, Sacrificed, Max speaks with Diana Baptista, a data journalist at the Thomson Reuters Foundation based in Mexico City, about Mexico\u2019s ongoing water crisis and about the human and environmental costs of AI and cloud computing.Additional links/info below\u2026
- Diana\u2019s Context author page and X page
- Fintan McDonnell & Diana Baptista, Context, \u201cForget jobs. AI is coming for your water (Video Report)\u201d
- Fintan McDonnell & Diana Baptista, Context, \u201cThirsty data centres spring up in water-poor Mexican town (Text Report)\u201d
- David Berreby, Yale Environment 360, \u201cAs use of A.I. soars, so does the energy and water it requires\u201d
- Tamara Pearson, The Real News Network, \u201cIndigenous Mexicans risk their lives to defend the environment from organized crime and \u2018insatiable, predatory\u2019 transnational corporations\u201d
- Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, \u201cIn Brazil, the climate crisis is already turning working people into climate refugees\u201d
- Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, \u201cEast Palestine residents have been left behind\u2014and they're running out of water\u201d
- Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
- Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- The Real News Network website, YouTubechannel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Jules Taylor, \u201cWorking People\u201d Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez
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