Draining cities dry: the giant tech companies queueing up to build datacentres in drought-hit Latin America

It is a warehouse the size of 12 football pitches that promises to create much-needed jobs and development​ in Caucaia city, north-east Brazil​. But it won’t have shelves stocked with products. This vast building will be a datacentre, believed to be earmarked for TikTok​, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app​, ​a​s part of a 55bn reais (£7.3bn) project​ to expand its global datacentre infrastructure​. As the demand for supercomputer facilities rises, fuelled by the AI boom, Brazil is attracting more and more tech companies. The choice of Caucaia is no accident. Several…