The global boom of data centers is at a critical point. The attraction of projects is an opportunity. Investment, qualified employment, technological positioning… But not everything is an advantage. Growing tensions are emerging related to the energy required or the environmental cost that data centers represent. The situation is such that, according to a study by Sightline Climate, cited by the agency Bloomberg, half of the data centers planned for 2026 will not materialize. What is happening? Are data centers, and consequently Artificial Intelligence, at risk?
Spain has established itself as one of the most privileged locations due to being a node of international connectivity, an energy mix oriented towards renewables, land availability, and a favorable regulatory environment for digitalization. This mix of conditions has made Madrid, Barcelona, and Zaragoza authentic hubs. However, accelerated growth raises debates.
Water Issue
It is obvious to everyone that data centers consume water. The greater their growth, the greater the water stress. Data centers require intensive cooling systems to prevent server overheating. In a country marked by increasingly severe drought cycles, the idea of technological infrastructures competing for water with agricultural or urban uses can generate social rejection in certain territories.
Thus, the projects will have to position themselves as environmentally friendly and ensure a local economic return.
However, that axis of discussion has been losing centrality. Technological evolution has introduced significant improvements in efficiency, with closed-circuit cooling systems, hybrid solutions, and more advanced designs that reduce water consumption. Without disappearing entirely, the problem has been mitigated to the point where many experts consider it no longer the main edge to resolve. The focus has shifted towards energy, as we explain in Demócrata.
The Bottleneck of Connection Points
There may be available land and unlimited water resources that, without a connection point to the electrical grid, a data center will not be able to operate, no matter how innovative it is.
The connection points are the physical (and administrative) nodes that allow a facility to connect to the transport or distribution grid and receive the electrical power it requires continuously and safely. These connection points are a limited resource. Each substation has a maximum capacity, and in many areas of the country, a good part of that capacity is already committed by industrial, energy, or other data center projects. Obtaining a connection point is not automatic: it requires administrative authorization, investments in grid reinforcement, and deadlines that can extend for several years.
The Government has tried to introduce corrective mechanisms, such as the imposition of fees for capacity reservation to prevent speculative projects from blocking network access without being executed. The logic is clear: whoever does not materialize their investment loses the right to that committed power. But the measure also reflects the extent to which electrical infrastructure has become the real battlefield.
This challenge is not exclusive to Spain. In the United States, the runaway growth of data centers—driven by tech giants—has begun to generate similar tensions. Some projects have been delayed or outright canceled due to the impossibility of guaranteeing sufficient energy supply within the required deadlines. The risk is evident: if there is no capacity to power these infrastructures, the development of artificial intelligence could encounter a physical, not technological, limit.
In the US, some projects have been delayed or directly canceled
Energy, the keystone
Energy is one of the nuclear elements and has become the main focus that determines whether a data center project thrives or not. And not so much for a matter of sustainability —where the sector, at least on paper, aligns with decarbonization objectives— as for one of pure capacity.
The irruption of artificial intelligence has changed the rules of the game. The new models, especially those linked to algorithm training, demand much higher power densities than previous generations. This implies higher, more constant consumptions concentrated in specific points of the network.
The result is a phenomenon that is already beginning to be visible: lack of power. In different geographies, including Spain, the capacity to connect to the electrical grid has become a scarce resource.
Thus, supply stability has become a critical and polarizing factor, as it is questioned whether renewable energies can absorb all that demand. Their generation is variable by nature and depends on factors such as wind or solar radiation. While these sources can cover a substantial part of the demand, their large-scale integration requires complementary solutions, such as storage systems or backup technologies. For example, in the United States, some large operators are exploring formulas such as modular nuclear reactors, still in various stages of development.
In Europe, the approach combines a strong commitment to renewable energies with an open debate on the role of other technologies in the energy mix. In this context, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has recently reopened the discussion on the contribution of nuclear energy, at a time when the need to guarantee stable supply coexists with decarbonization objectives and divergent positions among Member States. Not least, in Spain several opposition parties insist on keeping nuclear power plants operational.
And as if that were not enough: the heat
In parallel to all of the above, another less visible but equally relevant problem emerges: heat. Data centers not only consume energy; they also transform it into large amounts of residual heat.
Aragon, in fact, is one of the most worrying examples. A study coordinated by the University of Cambridge has detected an anomalous increase of 2ºC in the temperature of some areas of the region that concentrate data centers.
What is at stake goes beyond the technology sector. Data centers are the critical infrastructure on which the digital economy is built: from cloud services to artificial intelligence, including everyday applications that depend on remote processing.
So, what?
Limiting the development of data centers is not an option for the Government of Spain. Therefore, it took advantage of the anti-crisis decree to impose a fee and new requirements on projects with the aim of guaranteeing their execution.
In this new scenario, the data center "crisis" is not so much a collapse as a transition. The sector is entering a phase of maturity in which its structural limits are emerging and solutions are being considered to channel the boom.