Chile Court Orders Fresh Aquifer Review for Google’s Planned Cerrillos Data Center

The planned Google Cerrillos Data Center in Santiago illustrates how water risk can alter data-center project design and permitting. The original proposal contemplated groundwater withdrawals of 169 liters per second for cooling and other uses. Following a challenge to the environmental approval by local residents, Google submitted a project modification in 2022 proposing air cooling.

The change remains a submitted modification rather than a completed conversion or an operational cooling deployment. In 2024, Chile’s Second Environmental Court ordered a renewed assessment of the project’s effect on the aquifer, taking climate change into account. The case demonstrates that local water-basin impacts can become material to both environmental approvals and project schedules.

The wider water footprint of digital infrastructure encompasses more than facility cooling. The cited LBNL estimate puts direct water consumption by US data centers at 66 billion liters in 2023, up from 21.2 billion liters in 2014. US data centers consumed an estimated 176 TWh of electricity in 2023, while water consumed indirectly in power generation was estimated at approximately 800 billion liters.

Power demand is set to intensify the issue. The IEA projects global data-center electricity consumption to rise from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh in 2030, with AI identified as the principal growth driver. That forecast points to a potentially larger indirect water footprint even where facilities reduce direct cooling-water demand.

Semiconductor production is also part of the infrastructure water equation. TSMC reported water use of about 129 billion liters in 2024 across its Taiwan factories and subsidiaries. Its Tainan facility had used more than 19.65 billion liters of recycled water in semiconductor manufacturing by the end of 2024.

In Japan, Mordor Intelligence estimated total data-center-related water consumption at about 89 billion liters a year in 2025. The source notes, however, that water-use disclosure at the individual-facility level remains insufficient, limiting the ability to assess specific sites.

For operators, cooling selection cannot be assessed on direct water efficiency alone. The relevant trade-off is between water use, electricity consumption, emissions and the resilience of the local water basin. Water availability and facility-level transparency could therefore become increasingly consequential in site selection, environmental permitting and the redesign of planned capacity.