Hyperscale · Quilicura, Santiago, Chile

Google Quilicura Data Center

Google's first South American datacenter, powered 100% by Atacama solar energy

Google Quilicura Data Center on the mapmap: Natural Earth (public domain)

The story

In 2015, Google opened its first South American data center in Quilicura, a northern industrial municipality of Santiago, Chile. Sited in an earthquake-prone, water-scarce Andean valley, Google engineered the facility with high seismic damping and runs its evaporative cooling towers using treated municipal recycled water rather than drinking water. The facility is powered by clean energy contracted from the 196 MW El Romero solar photovoltaic plant in Chile's Atacama Desert.

Notable

Opened in 2015 as Google's very first company-owned data center in Latin America.
Powered 100% by renewable solar electricity from the El Romero solar plant in the Atacama Desert.
Utilizes recycled municipal greywater for its evaporative cooling towers in semi-arid Santiago.
Anchored by Google's Curie subsea cable connecting Valparaíso directly to Los Angeles, California.

Expansions

2018: $140M expansion doubling the capacity of the original facility
2023: Integration of 24/7 carbon-free energy matching pilot with Atacama solar projects

Operator	Google
Owner	Alphabet Inc.
Type	Hyperscale
Location	Quilicura, Santiago, Chile
Opened	2015
Status	operating
IT power	30 MW
Total power	40 MW
PUE	1.15 (trailing-12-month)
Site area	110,000 m²
Building area	35,000 m²
Cooling	free cooling chillers, recycled municipal water, cooling towers
Power	grid source: SEN (Sistema Eléctrico Nacional - El Romero Solar Plant contract) · renewable pct: 100 % · onsite generation: contracted off-take from 196 MW El Romero solar plant in Atacama · backup: diesel
Certifications	ISO 14001, ISO 50001, OHSAS 18001

See it on the earth

Record confidence: high. Values marked "estimated" are estimates in the source data.

Sources

Google Data Centers: Quilicura, Chile · Google · 2024-01-10
Así funciona el centro de datos de Google en Quilicura que opera 100% con energía solar · La Tercera · 2019-10-04
Google celebra los cinco años de su datacenter en Chile y anuncia nuevas expansiones · DatacenterDynamics · 2020-05-14

Part of the open famous data centers dataset (CC BY 4.0). Updated 2026-10-15. A correction? da@mustardseedmt.com

Questions people ask

What is Google Quilicura Data Center famous for?

Google's first South American datacenter, powered 100% by Atacama solar energy

Where is Google Quilicura Data Center?

Google Quilicura Data Center is in Quilicura, Santiago, Chile (-33.364, -70.738). It is operated by Google.

How much power does Google Quilicura Data Center use?

About 30 MW of IT load and 40 MW in total, according to the sources listed on this page.

What is the PUE of Google Quilicura Data Center?

1.15, trailing-12-month.