One winter morning in Quilicura, Chile, plumes of water vapor rose out of a warehouse-like building that serves as Google’s only operational data center in Latin America. Inside, vast halls of servers power the cloud, the invisible infrastructure that stores data and powers artificial intelligence. At 8 a.m. last month, when Chileans usually report for work, the campus looked empty, except for security guards who approached the gates when anyone loitered for too long. 

Data centers like this are touted as engines of growth. The Chilean government and technology companies like Google and Microsoft have said they will create thousands of jobs in the economy. In June, President Gabriel Boric announced that Microsoft’s hyperscale data center cluster would generate over 81,000 jobs. At the same event, Microsoft’s South America representative, Fernando López Iervasi, said those would include both direct and indirect positions created by clients and partners. Some 17,278 would be skilled IT jobs.

Chileans celebrated Boric and Iervasi’s promises on social media at a time when it had become harder to find jobs amid weak economic growth. Chile’s unemployment rate has hovered over 8% since 2023.

While the companies’ jobs estimates promote economy-wide impacts, government permit filings for individual sites reviewed by Rest of World tell a more specific story. An analysis of 17 data center projects that underwent environmental review since 2012 shows they would directly hire no more than 1,547 full-time operations employees. These include projects operated by Google and Microsoft. The facilities on average offer about 90 positions, and some have as few as 20. Former workers and local campaigners told Rest of World that most of the positions are in security and cleaning.

Another 32 data centers are planned to be built by 11 international firms by 2028, according to InvestChile, the government’s investment agency. Data obtained through an information request by researcher and Mozilla senior fellow Paz Peña shows those projects would add only 909 permanent positions during the operational phase, which lasts about 30 years.

“I’ve only found [employment] bubbles. It’s worrying that we have expectations that won’t be met,” Peña told Rest of World.

Microsoft confirmed Iervasi’s job estimates. In Chile, the company has helped train over 330,000 people in digital skills and helped connect another 300,000 rural residents to the internet, a spokesperson for Microsoft told Rest of World. 

Google and the Chilean ministry of labor didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Artificial intelligence and cloud computing have led to a global boom in data centers, with nations deploying incentives and tax breaks to attract investments. Data center capacity is expected to triple by 2030, raising concerns about the environmental impacts of the resource-hungry infrastructure. The employment potential of data centers has also been questioned in the United States. 

A former data center technician in Chile, employed by a subsidiary of American phone manufacturer Motorola, told Rest of World he had six colleagues who worked as technicians on rotating shifts. Everyone else at the center was a cleaner or security guard, he said. He requested anonymity as he had signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Most of Chile’s new centers are owned, either directly or through subsidiaries, by large tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft as well as private equity firms.

Explore charts >>

Their investments are the result of a push by Chile to become a data center hub through trading on its vast renewable energy resources to power the energy-hungry sector. The nation has already attracted some $4.1 billion in foreign investments through 2028, according to the National Data Centers Plan. 

Most of Chile’s 67 planned and operational data centers are located in the highly populated Santiago metropolitan region. This includes Quilicura, an area in the northwest that has a dense cluster of data centers. 

Santiago residents have been vocal against the development of data centers, saying they use too much water and energy. “To attract data centers, they’ve been given tax exemptions, and they’re being installed near renewable energy sources, but there’s no clarity on what they’ll do with [the] water,” Peña said. 

An official at Quilicura Municipal Office of Labor Information, where local companies post job openings, told Rest of World that the data centers haven’t posted any job offers through them. “Those jobs are very specialized, they can’t be filled locally,” Alexandra Arancibia, a councilwoman, told Rest of World. 

The government and the companies are pushing students to train to work in data centers, but there are few jobs, Tania Rodríguez, an environmental activist from the Socio Environmental Movement for Land and Water, known locally as Mosacat, told Rest of World. 

“Data centers are like warehouses filled with machines and cables, and there’s little need for workers,” she said.

Explore charts >>

At the National Institute of Vocational Training, a college in Santiago, computer science programs now have modules on data center operations. The college works with representatives of Google and local telecom provider GTD to design the curriculum, Gonzalo Labra, the Institute’s IT and cybersecurity director, told Rest of World. Some 13,000 students are enrolled.

The students can visit a newly set up data center laboratory — a cold and noisy room filled with hard drives, servers, and load balancers that mimics a real data center. 

“You can’t enter an operational data center, so we created this space,” Labra said. The program aligns with Chile’s economic goals laid out in its data center plan, he said.

When talking about job creation, data center companies and the government prefer to discuss economy-wide impacts rather than the number of employees directly hired at the sites. 

The government, in its data center plan, states that cloud computing as a whole — a vast category that includes almost all of Chile’s digital economy — has “supported” 695,000 jobs, accounting for 6.2% of gross domestic product. This would include all software developers, online businesses, and any worker who uses cloud tools. 

Diego Cortés, an economist at National Pedagogical University in Colombia, told Rest of World that “jobs created by cloud services are not necessarily new jobs.” 

For instance, a web developer may already be employed when their company switches cloud providers — a change that doesn’t generate a new position. “Putting in a data center doesn’t automatically create new demand for jobs that use that service,” he said.

Google has said its Quilicura project “supported” 5,520 jobs between 2021 and 2023, according to a report by consulting firm Deloitte commissioned by the company. Deloitte does not say how it arrived at the numbers, which include jobs created in “construction, engineering, networking, renewable energy jobs, security, and services, among others.” The report states Deloitte relied on unverified data provided by Google.  

Google’s figures fail to distinguish between direct and indirect jobs, or permanent and temporary positions, Cortés said. “Most of these are indirect jobs tied to the construction period. The numbers need to be clear about what’s temporary and what’s permanent,” he said.

Environmental permits submitted to Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service show Google’s project would create not more than 223 full-time operations jobs.

Microsoft’s employment estimates for its hyperscale data center cluster are based on a report by consulting firm International Data Corporation. It arrives at 81,401 jobs by including positions created by its customers and even jobs created in the wider economy when employees spend their incomes, according to the report. 

IDC used an economic model that assumes greater use of the cloud leads to growth, which in turn increases hiring.

“The model assumes companies will save on IT costs and reinvest those savings in hiring, but that doesn’t necessarily happen that way,” Cortés said. “You can’t assume that jobs connected to cloud services will bring real benefits to the local economy.”

He said IDC’s modeling could overstate the impacts for Chile, as its data centers may serve companies in foreign countries. “The IT jobs created might go to foreign workers rather than local hires,” he said.

The Microsoft cluster comprises three locations around Santiago, each containing one or more data centers. The permit for one of its data centers shows it would create just 75 long-term jobs over 30 years of operation.

Earlier this month, China announced new export restrictions on rare earths — critical minerals that are used in semiconductors, smartphones, electric vehicles, and more. The new curbs sparked a race by the U.S. to secure supplies from other countries to avoid disruptions to a wide range of industries.

China produces about 70% of the world’s rare earths — a set of 17 metallic elements — and processes nearly 90% of the minerals. The U.S. has signed deals with Australia and several Southeast Asian countries to minimize disruptions as it negotiates a deal with China to ease the restrictions.

Brazil is also being touted as an alternative, as the country has the second-largest reserves of rare earths in the world. The country’s extraction and refining industry, however, remain underdeveloped — a critical challenge.

“When we talk about reserves, it’s important to remember that we’re not just talking about what is in the ground,” Julie Michelle Klinger, an associate professor of geography and spatial sciences at the University of Delaware, told Rest of World. “What we’re actually talking about is what’s economically and politically feasible to mine. That depends as much on investment, technology, and regulation as it does on geology.”

Does Brazil have what it takes to be an alternative to China in the supply of rare earths? We spoke to experts to find out. The responses have been edited for brevity. 

Where are the world’s rare earth minerals? Who supplies the U.S.?

China has about half the global reserves of rare earth minerals, and Brazil has nearly a quarter, according to U.S. data. Australia, Russia, India, and Vietnam also have sizable reserves. Some of Brazil’s reserves are located in ionic clay deposits, which are easier, cheaper, and less environmentally damaging to mine than hard-rock deposits. They also have a higher concentration of rare earths.

The U.S. imports about 80% of its rare earths requirement from China, Malaysia, and other countries, the data showed.

80% The share of rare earth requirement that the U.S imports.

What is the impact of China’s rare earth curbs on Latin America? 

Raul Jungmann, president of the Brazilian Mining Institute, a nonprofit industry body.

For Brazil, as well as for countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico, which have large reserves of these minerals, challenges related to exploration, production, and commercialization may present a great opportunity, especially for promoting new research, stimulating industrialization, and verticalizing the production chain. This could increase these countries’ influence and bargaining power on the international stage.

In the case of Brazil, we have the potential to respond to the growing interest of other nations in these products with measures such as the implementation of a comprehensive policy on mining — from industrialization to logistics — as well as combating bottlenecks in the expansion of mining, such as limited geological knowledge and low financing. We also need partnerships with other countries for investment, and transfer of technology and knowledge to optimize production in Brazil.

It is also necessary to expedite the approval of the national policy on critical and strategic minerals that aims to develop sustainable mining, and provide tax breaks and other incentives to prioritize domestic value addition over raw material export.

What challenges does Brazil face in the extraction and refining of rare earths? 

Francisco Valdir Silveira, director of geology and mineral resources at the Geological Survey of Brazil, a public-private partnership.

In the 1990s, Brazil was one of the most developed countries in the rare earths chain. The big challenge today is not a lack of ore, it is not a lack of raw materials — it is a lack of embedded technology. We do have the capacity to greatly increase the exploitation of reserves if there is investment in research. We need to bring in factories, jobs, universities, technology centers, and well-trained people. 

From an environmental point of view, Brazilian legislation is one of the strictest on the planet. There are many restrictions and many controls at various levels — municipal, state, and federal. The challenge is to produce enough, put enough on the market to balance prices, and have good, reliable partners.

There’s a real opportunity here to link rare earth development with broader national development goals.”

Can Latin America establish itself as an alternative source for rare earths to the U.S.?

Julie Michelle Klinger, associate professor in the department of geography and spatial sciences at the University of Delaware.

Latin America can absolutely play a key role in global critical mineral supply chains, but it should do so on its own terms, building on reinvesting in research, refining, and recycling capacity, and by insisting that value be added locally. That means building partnerships focused on technological cooperation, not just raw material extraction. For communities asked to host mining projects, as well as for the workers within any mining operations, they should have some sense about where the material they are producing will end up: if they are producing for technologies that make the world better, or for technologies of mass destruction, or for non-essential uses like cheap toys.

There’s a real opportunity here to link rare earth development with broader national development goals — renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, and scientific innovation — rather than chasing another commodity boom. Latin American countries have tremendous leverage if they coordinate regionally. Together, they can help reset global norms around environmental standards, Indigenous rights, and the fair distribution of benefits

It’s time to move beyond the idea of Latin America as an “alternative supplier” to a different major consuming economy, because the region’s role and potential is greater than simply filling a gap in someone else’s supply chain. While it is important to diversify production and supplies globally, I think there’s a real need for responsible political leadership in diversifying and stabilizing global rare earth supply chains.