Artificial intelligence has been part of our lives for a long time, often almost without us stopping to think about what is behind it. We use it as if everything were happening in an invisible layer: models, algorithms and, perhaps, servers in some remote location. But we can also look at it from another perspective. The infrastructure that supports that world is very real: it has a location, consumes resources, requires permits, involves enormous investments, and can also alter the environment of those who live nearby. That is one of the great debates that is beginning to accompany the rise of AI: the cloud also has neighbors.
They lost the case. A specific case takes us to Huechuraba, north of Santiago de Chile, where Amazon plans to build a data center. The initiative had received a favorable Environmental Qualification Resolution in July 2024, but not everyone was convinced that the project had been evaluated accordingly. That concern reached the court through a claim presented by Patricio Hernández Valenzuela, a resident of the area, and the Second Environmental Court decided on April 9, 2026 to reject it, a decision that leaves the data center in a position to move forward.
A very specific concern. Hernández questioned whether the environmental evaluation of the project had not adequately taken into account a possible high voltage line that, according to his approach, would be necessary to power the data center. The criticism was not minor: if both infrastructures were linked, they had to be analyzed together. For residents, not doing so meant leaving relevant impacts on the environment out of the analysis.
The key to the failure. The court’s reasoning involves clearly separating both pieces. The ruling concludes that the data center and the eventual high-voltage line cannot be considered to form a single initiative, among other things because the Amazon project does not include that infrastructure as part of its design. Furthermore, the planned electricity supply does not depend on its own installation, but on the network managed by third parties, which reinforces the idea that these are different projects.
Without joint evaluation. Once the existence of a project unit has been ruled out, the court concludes that an integrated environmental assessment is not appropriate. The ruling states this explicitly: “it has been proven that between both initiatives there is no relationship of functional interdependence that conditions their execution.” This nuance is key, because it implies that the data center can operate using the available electrical infrastructure, without the need to subject its viability to a future high voltage line which, in any case, would have to be evaluated separately if it were to be considered.
Beyond the legal debate. The Amazon project has very specific dimensions on paper. The data storage center in Huechuraba is designed to operate for 30 years, with an estimated investment of 205 million dollars. It would be built on an area of 10.9 hectares, with a construction of 21,350.07 square meters, in the street of Américo Vespucio 1055. From the company, Reuters reports, they have indicated that the design of the infrastructure focuses on minimizing energy and water consumption, and maintains that the plan met environmental requirements.
Chile as a hub. The Huechuraba project is not an isolated initiative within Amazon’s strategy. Amazon Web Services has planned an investment of more than $4 billion in Chile over 15 years to build, operate and maintain its infrastructure in the country. The idea is to turn Santiago into its third major center in Latin America, after São Paulo and the central region of Mexico. Factors such as connectivity through fiber optic cables are added to this context.
The concern of those who live nearby. Beyond the investment and digital infrastructure they promise, data centers are often accompanied by very specific concerns: high electricity consumption, use of water for cooling, heat or noise generation, and their fit into environments that, in many cases, have environmental or community value.
Google did not have the same path. The case of Amazon is not the only one that has gone through this type of debate in Chile. Google had obtained initial approval in 2020 to build a $200 million data center in Cerrillos, southwest of Santiago. However, the project’s journey was different. In February 2024, the Second Environmental Court decided to partially reverse that permit, and months later the company announced that it would not continue with the initiative as it had originally been proposed, opting to start a new process from scratch for a project in the same place, but with a redesign based on air cooling.
Electricity enters the scene. If we broaden the focus, the debate is not limited to a specific project, but to the system’s capacity to absorb this type of infrastructure. A Systep report, published on September 23, 2025 with data from the National Electricity Coordinator, indicated that, taking 2025 as a starting point, the electrical demand of data centers in Chile could increase by 270% in five years. The same projection places this consumption at around 1,207 MW in 2030. These figures help to understand why the energy issue has become one of the central axes when talking about the expansion of the cloud and AI.
Images | with Nano Banana
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