Tech giants Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are betting big on the Spanish town of Zaragoza investing billions in data centers there. While jobs boom, concerns grow over environmental impact and low taxes.
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00:00Zaragoza. The Romans and the Moors settled here. These days it's the Americans.
00:06Except they're not building churches or palaces, but giant industrial plants.
00:11The local government here is beyond excited.
00:15This is good news, very important good news.
00:19This past year has brought more investment than any other year before.
00:25Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and some others want to invest more than 30 billion euros
00:31in a region that is otherwise known for agriculture and some logistics hubs.
00:36But why?
00:38In order to get cheap electricity it's best to use renewables like wind and solar.
00:43And here we have both wind and solar and lots of buildable space.
00:47And we're also easy to reach.
00:52Even though the server farms indeed use a lot of electricity,
00:55government and businesses here are seeing many advantages for the region,
00:59not least with regards to the job market.
01:03What we're really getting is investment, bringing high quality well-paid jobs.
01:10One example, Origen in Zaragoza.
01:13Their startup helps clients optimize business structures with the help of AI.
01:18They're also in the field of genetic analysis.
01:21For all that, the company is relying heavily on Amazon's servers.
01:28For genetic analysis, every person has 200 gigabyte of information.
01:32Now to compare one person's DNA to others,
01:35we need to compare their 200 gigabytes with lots of other 200 gigabytes.
01:40And that takes a lot of storage.
01:43Companies like Origen are expanding and creating jobs.
01:47Likely many more than all the data centers in the area themselves.
01:51Those, once built, employ very little personnel,
01:54especially when compared to the massive investment.
01:58This recent meeting on Zaragoza's new business was organized by an environmental group.
02:03They had tried to peek behind the curtain, a difficult undertaking,
02:07as the American companies are extremely secretive.
02:11And for good reason.
02:13According to a local tax expert, they barely pay any taxes in the region.
02:17A fact that shocked attendees.
02:23We don't know what's really coming at us.
02:28I don't think the politicians know what all this means for us.
02:35There are many unanswered questions.
02:38How much water does the server farm need to cool their servers?
02:41What does it mean for agriculture in the region?
02:47These recent measures here are shameful.
02:50Instead of letting farmers do their job,
02:53the government is now telling them that they have to ration water.
02:57And how to do it?
03:05The environmental group wants to better inform the public
03:08about the cloud businesses set up in their neighborhood
03:11and what side effects they might have.