Meta is building a $800M data center in Talara Peru that will consume 15% of the region’s water while creating 200 permanent jobs. Microsoft’s $1.1B investment in Chile includes a 166 MW campus near Santiago where electricity prices rose 20% last year. Meanwhile Brazil’s 1.2 GW of operational capacity serves US cloud providers while local startups pay 30% more for compute than Silicon Valley peers.

The AI gold rush is extracting value not creating it. These facilities employ fewer workers per MW than a textile factory while consuming more power than entire neighborhoods. The current model turns cities into power plants with no equity stake. Second order effect: local grids collapse under demand spikes while cloud providers negotiate sweetheart PPA deals that lock in low rates for a decade.

Winners: AWS Azure Google. Losers: Santiago residents paying higher electric bills. Talara’s water table. Brazilian startups priced out of their own infrastructure.

Watch for Latin American municipalities imposing per MW taxes like Uruguay’s 2023 law that captures 1.5% of data center revenues. Expect backlash when Meta’s Peru facility applies for water rights during drought season.