Why is drought-hit Brazil saying yes to AI data centers?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 747 Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When AI data centers come to town, companies promise jobs and opportunity. In one drought-stricken community in Brazil, residents are weighing the choices. How do communities balance the economic boost and environmental cost of hosting water-reliant data centers?
In this episode:
- Laís Martins (@laismartins.com), Investigative Journalist
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolomé and Haleema Shah, with Remas Alhawari, Manny Panaretos, Mariana Navarrete, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Kylene Kiang.
The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Sarí el-Khalili, Tamara Khandaker, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Ashish Malhotra, Haleema Shah, Khaled Soltan, Amy Walters, and Noor Wazwaz. Our editorial interns are Remas Alhawari, Marya Khan, and Kisaa Zehra. Our guest host is Kevin Hirten. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, data centers for AI are quietly sucking the world dry. |
| 0:16.0 | The more energy use, the more water you use. |
| 0:20.0 | Can Brazilians react before big tech dries up the rivers? |
| 0:26.5 | I'm Kevin Hurtain, and this is the take. |
| 0:35.1 | AI can pretty much do everything. |
| 0:41.1 | It can mimic my voice. It can even write a script for this episode. |
| 0:45.4 | Sure. Here's a script for your episode about data centers in Brazil. |
| 0:52.6 | But all that convenience comes with a hidden cost. Huge computing power needs huge infrastructure. And all of that comes from what are called |
| 0:55.2 | data centers, and they are thirsty, both for energy and for fresh water. |
| 1:01.5 | Every 20 to 50 queries to a large AI model like ChatGPT can consume about 500 milliliters |
| 1:07.6 | of water, roughly the size of a standard water bottle. |
| 1:15.3 | This is happening all over the world, and one of the hotspots is Brazil. |
| 1:21.3 | The progressive government of Lula de Silva wants Brazil to host as many data centers as possible. |
| 1:26.6 | They speak of this window of opportunity that Brazil has to take advantage of. |
| 1:28.2 | It should close soon. That's kind of what they say. The problem is, Brazil's once overflowing rivers are now drying up. |
| 1:35.2 | I'm Laiz Murchings. I'm a Brazilian journalist based in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I cover |
| 1:41.4 | technology for the Intercept Brazil. |
| 1:47.4 | So, Lais, thank you for joining us today on the take. |
| 1:52.9 | Now, you and your colleague, Francisco Amorim, wrote this incredible series published on the Intercept Brazil and in The Guardian. |
| 1:54.5 | Now, the story starts in the northeastern Brazilian city of Calcaya. |
| 1:58.4 | So paint us a picture of this city. |
... |
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