El Simposio Internacional de la Red Latinoamericana de Estudios sobre Vigilancia, Tecnología y Sociedad (LAVITS) vuelve a Río de Janeiro desde el 26 al 28 de agosto del 2026, en un momento marcado por profundos debates sobre el sentido del presente, sus formas de existencia y sus infraestructuras sociotécnicas.

Bajo el lema “Tejer el presente: tecnopolíticas disidentes y ecologías del Bien Común”, el simposio de este año vuelve a poner sobre la mesa, desde una perspectiva ecológica, tanto las tecnopolíticas hegemónicas como las prácticas disidentes y colectivas que desafían los modelos de control, la modulación algorítmica y la colonialidad digital.

Y el Instituto Lationoamericano de Terraformación estará presente en la discusión, a través de Paz Peña, quien será parte de la mesa “Aceleração, mudanças climáticas e tecnocolonogias” junto a los investigadores Paulo Tavares y Alyne Costa, este 26 de agosto a las 17 horas.

Para más información, pueden consultar la programación del evento acá: https://www.simposio2026.lavits.org/site/capa

#Spanish

During the session, we began by reviewing the diverse, growing, and as-yet-unknown socio-environmental impacts of data centers. We therefore demonstrated that the precautionary principle—as a rule for environmental protection and public health—appears to be the appropriate public policy for addressing the growing and as yet unknown impacts of this infrastructure.

We then provided an overview of Latin America, which led us to conclude that: governments across the continent have a debt to settle regarding the sustainability of AI; self-regulation does not work for the sustainability of data centers; and the challenge requires specific regulatory frameworks with clear conditions.

Likewise, in reviewing the Chilean case, we conveyed to the Senate that, due to the lack of clear legal safeguards governing the socio-environmental impacts of this infrastructure, data center projects in Chile often end up in court, which entails significant capital costs and uncertainty for both companies and affected communities.

This may serve as a useful lesson for Brazil, showing that the lack of adequate legal frameworks and public policies has delayed plans to develop this infrastructure, and that such infrastructure cannot be developed without involving communities throughout the environmental assessment process.

Among our suggestions for Bill 3018/2024 are:

1. Strategic and participatory socio-environmental planning as a role of the State: Above all, to avoid what is happening in the United States, where states compete aggressively to attract hyperscale data centers and decisions are shifted from public forums to private agreements and executive orders. This model privatizes benefits and control while socializing economic risks and environmental damage. It also undermines democratic accountability and resilience in the face of ecological limits (Kollar, J., 2026).

2. Requirement to undergo participatory and territory-specific environmental licensing procedures.

3. Requirements for metrics and accountability mechanisms regarding socio-environmental impacts.

4. Ensure mechanisms for energy justice.

5. Not losing sight of fundamental issues for public policy, such as the low social value of AI among populations like that of the United States, the minimal employment impact of data centers, and the risks of an economic and financial AI bubble—all of which leave open the question of how Brazil should legislate to address these dangers and shield its economy and population.

You can read our full statement at this link.

#English

En la ocasión, partimos repasando un panorama general de los diversos, crecientes y aún desconocidos impactos socioambientales de los centros de datos. Por tanto, mostramos que el principio precautorio -como una regla de protección ambiental y de salud pública- parece ser el indicado como política pública para enfrentar los crecientes y aún desconocidos impactos de estas infraestructuras.

Luego, hicimos un panorama de América Latina que nos permitió afirmar que:

• Los gobiernos del continente tienen una deuda sobre la sostenibilidad de la IA.
• La autoregulación no funciona para la sustentabilidad de los centros de datos.
• El desafío requiere marcos regulatarios específicos con una serie de condiciones.

Asimismo, revisando el caso chileno, transmitimos al Senado que debido a la falta de salvaguardas legales y claras que regulen los impactos socioambientales de estas infraestructuras, los proyectos de centros de datos en Chile muchas veces terminan judicializados, lo que implica un amplio costo de capital y de incertudumbre para las empresas y las comunidades impactadas.

Lo anterior puede ser útil en Brasil para aprender que la falta de marcos legales y políticas públicas adecuadas y participativas ha hecho que se retrasen los planes de desarrollo de centros de datos, y que, consecuentemente, no puede haber desarrollo de estas infraestructuras sin que las comunidades estén involucradas en todo el proceso de evaluación ambiental.

Entre nuestras sugerencias para Proyecto de Ley 3018/2024, están:

1. Planificación socioambiental estratégica y participativa como rol de Estado: Sobre todo para evitar lo que pasa en Estados Unidos, donde los Estados compiten agresivamente por atraer centros de datos de hiperescala y las decisiones se trasladan desde espacios públicos hacia acuerdos privados y decretos ejecutivos. Este modelo privatiza beneficios y control, mientras socializa riesgos económicos y daños ambientales. También debilita la rendición de cuentas democrática y la resiliencia frente a los límites ecológicos (Kollar, J.. 2026).

2. Obligación de someterse a procedimientos de licenciamiento ambiental participativo y especifico en los territorios.

3. Exigencias de métricas y mecanismos de rendición de los impactos socioambientales.

4. Asegurar mecanismos de justicia energética.

5. No perder de vista temas de fondo para la política pública, como son el poco valor social que tiene la IA en poblaciones como la estadounidense, el bajo impacto laboral de los centros de datos, y los riesgos de una burbuja económica y fananciera de la IA, que dejan la pregunta abierta de cómo Brasil debiera legislar para responder a estos peligros y blindar a su economía y población.

Puedes leer nuestra intervención completa en este link.

#Spanish

Photo: The New York Times – Water vapor rising from cooling towers at Google’s data center in Santiago, Chile

By Paz Peña, coordinator of the Latin American Institute of Terraforming.

[Spanish version / Portuguese version].

The growing socio-environmental impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are not a matter of efficiency or will; they are the result of an economic and political model centered on a handful of very powerful companies determined to consolidate their power networks and reshape the global economic infrastructure in their favor.

In this context, the question is: what role do Ibero-American governments play, especially when it seems that we are viewed merely as a means of socializing the environmental costs of the AI economy? Amid a turbulent geopolitical landscape in which hegemonic power in the 21st Century will indeed be up for grabs, our countries can find a way forward through strategy, creativity, and solidarity.

An Inconvenient Truth

It’s not a matter of merit; it’s the design of the model: the frenzy surrounding AI is sustained by a narrative of technological determinism and inevitability that presents it as the only possible future, driving governments and investors to fund projects out of fear of being left behind. This is the case in several countries in Ibero-America, which are investing despite having no chance of competing on equal footing: cutting-edge AI depends on specialized chips, intellectual property, and hyperscale data centers concentrated among a small number of external providers. The concentration of resources determines who gains the strategic and economic advantages and who sets the terms for access, pricing, and data governance, widening the gap between creator and consumer nations.

The case of Latam-GPT reflects this situation: although it was presented as a model developed by and for Latin America to strengthen digital sovereignty, it uses Meta’s architecture and is trained on Amazon’s infrastructure. This demonstrates that sovereignty and the ability to compete do not depend solely on model development but also on control over digital infrastructure, data, energy, and the rules that underpin these systems.

This frenzy is designed, on the one hand, to fuel an economic bubble that allows loss-making AI companies to attract venture capital (such as OpenAI, which loses three times as much as it earns), while diverting attention from debates about existential risks or socio-environmental impacts. On the other hand, mass consumption facilitates what Cory Doctorow calls “shittification,” in which platforms first make themselves indispensable to capture users, then aggressively extract value and consolidate their dominance.

The Socio-Environmental Costs of the Model

This AI-frenzy model requires the global expansion of its data centers. Large corporations use this investment to fortify their dominant position and pursue a reverse business model, incurring billions in operating losses while forcing users and smaller competitors into cognitive and infrastructural dependence. This expansion is the material and political foundation that ensures power remains concentrated in an elite capable of sustaining this financial endurance race.

Furthermore, corporations need to plan for a more diverse and strategic distribution of data centers to meet the training and inference needs of models, which require characteristics such as low latency and efficient access to energy, water, and land. This explains why Brazil is home to one-third of Latin America’s data centers, while Chile and Mexico are establishing themselves as emerging markets: their governments offer policy measures to facilitate access to critical resources, including operating within socio-environmental legal loopholes. This loophole allows corporate profits to be privatized while environmental costs are socialized onto local communities and public budgets, in a context of zero public participation, a lack of transparency, and the classification of resource consumption, such as water, as a trade secret.

When discussing their range of socio-environmental impacts, water and energy are key issues. A hyperscale data center can consume up to 19 million liters of water per day for cooling—equivalent to the water use of a city of 50,000 people—a critical issue in regions experiencing water stress. Furthermore, a single AI query requires up to 10 times as much energy as a traditional search. The electricity consumption of data centers in 2025 (448 TWh) could meet the annual household energy needs of the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa for 2.6 years. This overwhelms local grids, has driven up electricity prices for consumers in the United States, and forces a reliance on fossil-fuel power plants to ensure supply.

In this context, some Latin American countries with cleaner energy mixes appear to be attractive destinations; however, this advantage is misleading: large-scale infrastructure is being attracted without a sufficient assessment of its cumulative impacts on energy systems, nor is there any political accountability regarding the power granted to these corporations in our countries’ energy transition.

A Socio-Environmental Policy for AI

Until now, the corporate narrative has been that AI sustainability will be achieved primarily through process efficiency. However, the Jevons Paradox demonstrates that improvements in technological efficiency often lead to an increase in total resource consumption. And while technical improvements exist to reduce environmental impact, they are isolated measures not replicated globally and do little to address the system’s scaling up.

In this context, a socio-environmental policy on AI from Ibero-America should not focus so much on mere efficiency measures or on implementing serious, transparent, and participatory legal frameworks—which, while necessary, are insufficient. A serious socio-environmental policy for AI in Ibero-America must be a digital economic policy that decouples itself from the frenzy surrounding AI and seeks new avenues for economic, human, and environmental sustainability through technological alternatives. This can only be achieved at the regional level, through multilateral dialogue, creativity, and determination. Perhaps this turbulent 21st century, rather than merely a crisis of hegemonies, is also an opportunity for our countries.

#English

A través de casos emblemáticos en nuestra región, evidenciamos cómo la instalación de centros de datos de inteligencia artificial ha agravado las violaciones relacionadas con el derecho al agua, a la energía, a la salud, a la información y a un medio ambiente ecológicamente equilibrado. También denunciamos prácticas de racismo ambiental, la ausencia de consulta previa a los pueblos indígenas y procesos caracterizados por la escasa transparencia y la limitada participación social.

No podemos aceptar que las narrativas de «greenwashing» y tecnosolucionismo sigan vendiendo estas infraestructuras como símbolos de la transición energética mientras los costes socioambientales siguen siendo desplazados hacia los territorios del Sur Global.

Defendemos medidas concretas y urgentes, como:

• La definición de límites absolutos al consumo de recursos;
• La eliminación de las emisiones reales, sin compensaciones;
• La garantía de consulta previa a las comunidades afectadas;
• La transparencia de los datos;
• La participación social efectiva;
• La redistribución de los beneficios económicos generados.

Pueden leer nuestro documento (en portugués), aquí.

#Spanish

“They have announced the construction of a data center in my community. What do we do?” Data centers and their capacities are multiplying worldwide as artificial intelligence gains importance in the economy. How can we bridge the gap in access to information about the socio-environmental consequences of AI, specifically in Latin America?

Based on case studies from Brazil, Chile, and Querétaro in Mexico, we built DataCenterBoom!, a repository of information for communities and local authorities so that they have information available about why a data center is being built in their community, a catalog of its socio-environmental consequences, a section on how public policy has responded, as well as lessons learned from different local resistance movements to these infrastructures.

It has a Spanish and an English version, and we hope to have a Portuguese version soon 😊. If you are interested in the topic, please subscribe to the website to receive new reports and content, and give us feedback in the About section.

#English

“Han anunciado la construcción de un data center en mi comunidad. ¿Qué hacemos?”. Los centros de datos y sus capacidades se multiplican en el mundo de acuerdo la inteligencia artificial va ganando importancia en las economías, ¿cómo podemos equiparar en algo la brecha de acceso a la información sobre las consecuencias socioambientales de la IA, específicamente, en América Latina?

Basadas en el estudio de caso de Brasil, Chile y Querétaro en México, construimos DataCenterBoom!, un repositorio de información para comunidades y autoridades locales para que tengan información disponible sobre por qué construyen un data center en su comunidad, un catálogo con sus consecuencias socioambientales, una sección sobre cómo ha respondido la política pública, como también lecciones aprendidas de distintas resistencias locales a estas infraestructuras.

También tiene una versión en inglés y esperamos que pronto una versión en portugués 😊. Si les interesa el tema, por favor, suscríbanse en la web de DataCenterBoom! para recibir nuevos informes y contenidos específicos.

#Spanish

Aunque la inteligencia artificial (IA) ya se había tenido en cuenta en COP anteriores, la COP30, celebrada en Belém (Brasil) en noviembre de 2025, marcó una significativa nueva fase en los debates sobre el clima. Por primera vez, la IA se incluyó sistemáticamente en la Agenda de Acción de la COP como tema estratégico.

Sin embargo, a pesar del gran entusiasmo que suscitó en la COP30 la promesa de la IA de ayudar a combatir el cambio climático, se prestó muy poca atención a la otra cara del ecosistema de la IA: su impacto medioambiental. Solo unos pocos eventos paralelos y conferencias de prensa llamaron la atención sobre cómo los modelos de IA y las infraestructuras que los alimentan son responsables de emitir altos niveles de CO₂ a la atmósfera y también han provocado un aumento de la demanda de minerales, agua y energía.

Al término de la COP30 y en el contexto de los debates políticos que deben seguir desarrollándose en futuras ediciones de la COP, queremos expresar las siguientes preocupaciones en relación con el discurso público sobre la IA en el contexto de la crisis climática y ecológica:

1. La inteligencia artificial no es una solución tecnológica a la crisis climática y ecológica; es más, la IA aumenta el uso de combustibles fósiles, eleva las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y, por lo tanto, pone en peligro los objetivos climáticos de los países con mayor concentración de centros de datos de IA, como China, Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea. Las políticas climáticas de la COP no pueden basarse en el discurso de marketing, el cabildeo o el pensamiento mágico promovido por las empresas tecnológicas, sino en las pruebas científicas independientes actuales.

2. La inteligencia artificial no es solo otro recurso natural o una fuerza inevitable. Su uso, adopción y comercialización en todos los aspectos de la vida política, social y económica está impulsado por sus propietarios, un puñado de grandes y poderosas empresas tecnológicas (concentradas principalmente en dos países, Estados Unidos y China) cuyo incentivo es expandir su capital, no mitigar la crisis climática y ecológica. Las políticas climáticas de la COP no pueden diseñarse para servir al bienestar económico de este puñado de poderosas empresas: esto fomenta la concentración de poder y refuerza peligrosamente su papel, especialmente en otros países de bajos ingresos y en desarrollo.

3. La IA genera impactos socioambientales que van mucho más allá de las emisiones de CO₂. Como muestran múltiples informes internacionales basados en pruebas científicas, la IA es una industria que requiere numerosos minerales, grandes cantidades de tierra y enormes cantidades de agua dulce y energía, lo que está causando una serie de impactos socioambientales en todo el mundo que van más allá de las emisiones de CO₂ de alcance 1, y que también exigen una contabilidad seria del alcance 3, la categoría que expone los impactos del ciclo de vida completo en la minería, las cadenas de suministro, la fabricación y el fin de la vida útil. Sin embargo, los resultados de la COP30 no incorporaron de manera significativa estos impactos, lo que dejó una gran brecha en la forma en que los países evalúan y reportan la huella climática de la infraestructura digital. De cara al futuro, es esencial que los compromisos climáticos nacionales (Contribuciones Determinadas a Nivel Nacional, NDC) incluyan explícitamente las emisiones y el uso de recursos asociados con los centros de datos y las cadenas de suministro de IA, garantizando la transparencia y la rendición de cuentas en un sector cuyo impacto climático se está expandiendo rápidamente. Nos preocupa que los responsables de la toma de decisiones crean que estos impactos pueden resolverse milagrosamente solo con la innovación tecnológica, lo que la evidencia descarta, por ejemplo, dada la paradoja de Jevons en la IA.

4. El apetito energético de la IA amenaza una transición energética justa. Como una de las industrias más intensivas en energía del siglo XXI, el interés genuino de las empresas que están detrás de la IA en la COP es garantizar el acceso a los combustibles fósiles a corto plazo y a las energías renovables a medio plazo, considerándose estas últimas una solución tecnológica a sus emisiones de CO₂, ignorando los costes sociales, económicos y medioambientales que conlleva actualmente la producción de energía renovable, especialmente en comunidades que no han causado la crisis climática y ecológica. El apetito de la IA por las energías renovables es tal que, sin una mediación política y democrática, denunciamos que la transición energética, especialmente en los países en desarrollo, se diseñará para satisfacer las necesidades de un puñado de empresas tecnológicas extranjeras en lugar de las comunidades e industrias locales.

5. Los gobiernos deben proteger a su población y a sus ecosistemas, no los intereses de la industria. Instamos a los responsables de la toma de decisiones en los gobiernos nacionales, en particular en los países en desarrollo que participan en la COP, a que reafirmen su compromiso con las pruebas científicas y el bienestar de sus comunidades, la biodiversidad y las industrias locales. Es esencial no adoptar la IA de forma acrítica. Nos encontramos en un momento crítico para abordar la crisis climática y ecológica, y cualquier mejora de la IA sin los debidos controles normativos, socioambientales y éticos, sólo reforzará el poder de las empresas tecnológicas mundiales, lo que en última instancia socavará las ambiciones climáticas en todo el mundo.

Firmado por:

• El Instituto Lationoamerica de Terraformación
• Law and Technology Research Institute of Recife (IP.rec)
• Coding Rights
• Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet – LAPIN
• Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection – Idec
• Heinrich Böll Foundation

#Español

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) had been considered in previous COPs, COP30, which took place in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, marked a significant new phase in climate discussions. For the first time, AI was systematically included in the COP’s Action Agenda as a strategic theme.

However, despite the strong enthusiasm around AI's promises to help tackle climate change at COP30, very little attention was given to the other side of the AI ecosystem: its environmental impacts. Only a few side events and press conferences drew attention to how AI models and the infrastructures that power them are responsible for emitting high levels of CO₂ into the atmosphere and have also led to a heightened demand for minerals, water, and energy.

At the end of COP30 and in the context of the political discussions that must continue to be developed in future editions of the COP, we would like to express the following concerns regarding the public discourse on AI in the context of the climate and ecological crisis:

1. Artificial Intelligence is not a techno-solution to the climate and ecological crisis; moreover, AI increases the use of fossil fuels, raises greenhouse gas emissions, and thus jeopardizes the climate goals of countries with the highest concentration of AI data centers, such as China, the United States and the European Union. COP climate policies cannot be based on marketing discourse, lobbying, or magical thinking promoted by technology companies, but rather on current independent scientific evidence.

2. Artificial Intelligence is not just another natural resource or an inevitable force. Its use, adoption, and marketing in all aspects of political, social, and economic life is driven by its owners, a handful of large and powerful technology companies (concentrated mainly in two countries, the United States and China) whose incentive is to expand their capital, not to mitigate the climate and ecological crisis. COP climate policies cannot be designed to serve the economic well-being of this handful of already powerful companies: this encourages the concentration of power and dangerously strengthens their role, especially in other low-income and developing countries.

3. AI generates socio-environmental impacts far beyond CO₂ emissions. As multiple international reports based on scientific evidence show, AI is an industry that requires numerous minerals, large amounts of land, and vast quantities of fresh water and energy, which is causing a series of socio-environmental impacts around the world that go beyond Scope 1 CO₂ emissions – also demanding a serious accounting of Scope 3, the category that exposes the full lifecycle impacts across mining, supply chains, manufacturing and end-of-life. Yet COP30’s outcomes did not meaningfully incorporate these impacts, leaving a major gap in how countries assess and report the climate footprint of digital infrastructure. Looking forward, it is essential that national climate commitments (Nationally Determined Contributions – NDCs) explicitly include the emissions and resource use associated with data centers and AI supply chains, ensuring transparency and accountability in a sector whose climate impact is rapidly expanding. We are concerned that decision-makers believe that these impacts can be miraculously solved by technological innovation alone, which the evidence rules out, for example, given Jevons' paradox in AI.

4. AI’s hunger for energy threatens a just energy transition. As one of the most energy-intensive industries of the 21st century, the genuine interest of the companies behind AI at the COP is to secure access to fossil fuels in the short term and renewables in the medium term, the latter being considered a techno-solution to their CO₂ emissions, ignoring the social, economic, and environmental costs that renewable energy production currently entails, especially in communities that have not caused the climate and ecological crisis. The AI's appetite for renewable energy is such that, without political and democratic mediation, we denounce that the energy transition, especially in developing countries, will be designed for the needs of a handful of foreign technology corporations rather than for local communities and industries.

5. Governments must protect their people and ecosystems, not the industry interests. We urge decision-makers in national governments, particularly in developing countries participating in the COP, to reaffirm their commitment to scientific evidence and the well-being of their communities, biodiversity, and local industries. It is essential not to adopt AI uncritically. We are at a critical juncture in addressing the climate and ecological crisis, and any enhancement of AI without proper regulatory, socio-environmental and ethical checks will only strengthen the power of global tech corporations, ultimately undermining climate ambitions worldwide.

Signed by:

• The Latin American Institute for Terraforming
• Law and Technology Research Institute of Recife (IP.rec)
• Coding Rights
• Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet – LAPIN
• Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection – Idec
• Heinrich Böll Foundation

#English

By Paz Peña, coordinator of the Latin American Institute of Terraforming.

Arrive and operate. Or, as the Minister of Science says, data centers in Chile are ready to “plug and play.” Days ago, I attended a virtual meeting in Spain, where we discussed regulatory trends related to data centers. They asked me about the situation in Latin America and Chile. I replied – to the surprise of some foreigners- that trends here are toward deregulation. There are many examples, but let's talk about Chile in light of LaBot news.

The government (famous for calling itself ecologist) approved a regulatory change that means that new data centers built in Chile will not have to undergo any environmental impact assessment; they will only have to comply with sector-specific procedures, such as obtaining building permits. A change in the thresholds for diesel storage gives rise to this new scenario. As journalist Francisca Skoknic says in LaBot:

Curiously, data centers are not environmentally assessed for their energy impact or water consumption, but because they store large volumes of diesel to run backup power equipment in case of outages. The SEIA regulation in point ñ3 establishes that the storage threshold for flammable substances is 80,000 liters. With the change made by the Council of Ministers, that limit rises to 1,000 tons, or 1 million liters, which is what the Ministry of Health's sectoral regulation requires for the storage of hazardous substances.

For the government, the changes to the thresholds only affect projects that do not have a significant environmental impact. In other words, despite scientific evidence, such as that contained in the 2024 UNCTAD reports, data centers in Chile do not have a significant environmental impact: they are ready to “plug and play.”

We have been aware of this trend toward deregulation for some time. The Minister of Science said in the press when announcing the National Data Center Plan that “it aims to identify and make available land that has internet connectivity, access to renewable energy, pre-approved permits for the installation of these data centers, and where companies can invest and set up quickly. Plug and play.” These are the sectoral permits that the government intends to grant as replacements for the current environmental restrictions, which environmental organizations have denounced as an attempt to deregulate rather than enhance environmental permits – a phenomenon that the industry and the government refer to as “permisología” (permit culture). In addition, the national plan establishes a “Clean Production Agreement,” a voluntary agreement between the productive sector and the State that sets specific sustainability goals to reduce the environmental impact of industrial activities. Furthermore, we cannot deny that the data center industry lobby is, as they have said publicly, in favor of deregulation.

I've heard government representatives publicly state that the plan is not about deregulation but rather an attempt to bring order, ensure sustainability, and prevent the uncontrolled growth of data centers in municipalities such as Quilicura. The truth is that we are witnessing public policies that are not only based on science but have also failed to incorporate the concerns of sectors other than a specific industry.

#English