Argentina hosts 67 registered data centres, and President Javier Milei is banking on a boom in the sector to attract billions in foreign investment. But the strategy is already sparking fierce debate over who bears the cost of powering artificial intelligence infrastructure designed to benefit global tech monopolies.
Milei is aggressively marketing the country as a technology hub, citing abundant land, water and cheap energy as competitive advantages. The pitch has worked—at least on paper. Of Argentina’s 67 registered data centres, 52 are operational, 13 more have been announced and one is under construction. Those figures point to a sprawling infrastructure push that could reshape how the country uses its most precious resources, and who profits.
Two high-profile projects show the scale of the ambition. In October 2025, one year elapsed as of October 10, 2026, OpenAI and Sur Energy signed a Letter of Intent to develop a data centre in Patagonia, with a potential investment of up to US$25 billion. That’s the headline figure Milei touts internationally. There’s a catch, though: no final investment decision has been confirmed, and the location hasn’t been verified. A second project surfaced in July 2026, when Poland’s Green Capital announced plans for a data centre in Trelew, Chubut Province. The company aims to provide 300 megawatts initially, scaling to 3,000 MW by project completion, with construction projected to begin in 2028.
Ariel Graizer, chair of the Cámara Argentina de Internet (CABASE), explained how location affects data-centre operations. “Some data centres need to be close to people because latency has to be lower. The ubiquity of the Internet means the little spinning wheel doesn’t freeze and you can scroll quickly through TikTok or Instagram.” AI model training facilities can sit farther from population centres, which is precisely why Patagonia appeals to tech companies. Distance won’t curb their appetite for electricity.
The Energy and Resource Question
Data centres house servers, storage systems and networking equipment to process, store and distribute vast volumes of information. Digital services and artificial intelligence have driven the technology’s expansion, and both require enormous processing power, storage capacity and, above all, energy. These projects are anything but modest.
Last month, Argentina’s national Energy Secretariat set up a new regime within the wholesale electricity market, the Régimen de Demandas Extratendenciales (Extraordinary Demand Regime, XDEM), to manage pressure on the grid. The rule requires major projects to provide and pay for their own energy supply. The government says the aim is straightforward: prevent strain on existing infrastructure and protect uninterrupted electricity supplies for households, small and medium-sized enterprises, and businesses.
That sounds reasonable until you look at what it means in practice. It remains unclear whether data centres will have to fully offset their consumption, or whether the protections will hold. Argentina faces chronic electricity challenges. Shifting infrastructure investment to private companies may sound efficient on paper, but the country’s record of enforcing such arrangements against well-capitalized foreign firms is mixed.
Pablo Serdán, a lawyer and lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires, has followed the sector through his Tengo Data observatory. His registry lists 67 facilities nationwide, 42 percent of them concentrated in Buenos Aires City and Buenos Aires Province. Neuquén Province accounts for 12 entries; other projects appear in Córdoba, Santa Fe, San Luis, Salta, Chubut, Río Negro, Mendoza, La Pampa, San Juan, and other provinces. Several projects still lack confirmed locations.
The registry identified nine operational or announced data centres associated with artificial intelligence: six hyperscale projects, two involving high-performance computing infrastructure, and one operational facility documented as “AI-ready.” These facilities are at the heart of the resource debate.
The Mobilization Against Data Centres
Argentina isn’t alone in confronting data-centre expansion. Opposition in the United States has become a defining political issue. On July 18, 2026, 142 protests against data-centre expansion took place across 42 U.S. states. By September 2026, Data Center Watch had documented 843 local opposition groups across 49 states. During the first half of 2026, more than 120 U.S. projects, valued at nearly US$200 billion combined, were blocked or delayed. Fourteen states proposed moratoria as they debated how major consumers and other users should share electricity and infrastructure costs.
Argentine lawmakers have taken notice of the movement. National deputy Juan Marino of Unión por la Patria, who represents Buenos Aires Province, is drawing inspiration from U.S. grassroots resistance. “We must take inspiration from the example of that popular mobilisation. We propose convening regional assemblies in the provinces and municipalities where these hyperscale data centres are intended to be built. We cannot allow our land, water and energy to be used to power the artificial intelligence that American monopolies use for Trump’s wars,” he said.
Mario’s argument goes beyond local control: it asks whose interests the technology serves. The jobs argument Milei emphasizes hasn’t persuaded critics. Data centres employ relatively few people compared with the infrastructure investment and resource consumption they require. Foreign companies that own the facilities and energy companies that supply them receive most of the benefits. Argentines bear the environmental and resource costs.
Official Strategy and the Regulatory Gap
Milei’s government is betting that Argentina’s place in the global tech competition between the United States and China calls for openness. The argument goes that if Argentina doesn’t welcome data centres, the investment will move elsewhere. The president repeated the case at the United Nations: Argentina’s strategy is to open its doors to major digital infrastructure projects.
But the ambition exceeds the rules in place to manage it. Critics don’t reject investment outright; many say they’re open to data centres if clear regulations protect the environment and address political and social implications. Those rules don’t exist yet. The government has announced the XDEM energy regime, but broader requirements for environmental impact, water use, community consultation and benefit-sharing haven’t materialized.
The Cámara Argentina de Internet has compiled its own register, focused on facilities serving third parties. It identified 14 facilities with capacity above 1 megawatt and combined installed capacity of nearly 32 megawatts. Those figures are small, suggesting Argentina’s sector remains nascent. But it’s growing, with 13 new projects announced.
Why This Matters:
Argentina faces a decision. Its abundant water, energy and land make it genuinely attractive for data-centre investment as artificial intelligence consumes unprecedented computing resources. Yet the American experience shows communities can resist projects they see as extractive—taking resources without proportional local benefit. The question isn’t whether Argentina should host data centres, but under what conditions and with what protections. For now, those conditions remain undefined. The XDEM energy regime addresses one part of the problem, but leaves environmental protection, labor standards, community consent and revenue-sharing untouched. Without those frameworks, Argentina risks becoming what critics call a “resource colony” for global tech monopolies: exporting electricity and water to power American artificial intelligence while capturing relatively few of the gains. The 843 opposition groups active across the United States, and the US$200 billion in projects they helped block, show communities everywhere are asking harder questions about who benefits from the data-centre boom. Argentina needs to answer them first, not after.