Countries / Americas
Chile
Chile has a dedicated National Data Centres Plan to 2030, faster permitting and the region's most developed data centre market in Santiago.
The Science Ministry launched the National Data Centres Plan 2024-2030 on 5 December 2024. It has nine measures: a mapping tool to steer sites towards areas with energy and land, published permit guidance in Spanish and English, standard environmental-assessment criteria, a voluntary clean production agreement, a multi-cloud state platform, AI campuses in high-renewable regions and priority access to compute for Chilean researchers. Reported estimated investment is US$4 billion. A separate permitting law is reported to cut data centre approval from about 120 days to 25. For someone seeking compute, Santiago has the deepest market, with many more projects announced.
Power and grid
A trade article reports about 2,000 MW of battery storage today with 10 GW projected by 2027, and about 6 GW a year lost in Antofagasta for lack of transmission, which it presents as an opening for northern sites. Treat these as one outlet's figures. AI-scale projects above 100 MW are expected to need grid reinforcement.
Data centres and compute
| Site | Where | Status | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Quilicura | Quilicura, Santiago | Operating | Google reports 92% hourly carbon-free energy and a PUE of 1.09 in 2024, and uses water for cooling (121.8 million gallons that year). (source) |
| Santiago data centre market Various | Santiago | Operating | A DCD report on the plan launch counts 22 operating facilities and 30 further projects announced. (source) |
Rules and programmes
| Instrument | Kind | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Data Centres Plan 2024-2030 (PDATA) | Policy | In force from 5 December 2024 | Law-firm summary. Phase one is 2025-2027, phase two 2028-2030. No capacity figures in that source. |
| Sectoral Authorisations Framework Law | Law | In force | Trade-press report says it cuts data centre installation timelines by 20 to 70 percent, from 120 days to a maximum of 25. We have not read the statute. |
Checked on 2 October 2026 and due for review by 1 January 2027. Many sources are trade press or law-firm summaries rather than official texts, and statuses such as reported or unconfirmed are shown as the source gives them. This is a summary, not legal advice. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us.