ZARAGOZA, Spain — Aragon’s rugged plains stretch out under a clear blue sky, the buildings visible as “a few tiny cubes sprawled like a throw of dice” across the terrain — as George Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia, of his time here during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Today, excavators eat the earth, carving huge chunks of the landscape in the race to build the behemoths of the AI boom.

This drought-stricken region of northeast Spain has become the focus of American companies searching for locations to place their energy- and water-intensive data centers. In Aragon, Amazon Web Services promises to spend almost $40 billion to build multiple vast complexes — one alone as large as 600 American football fields. Microsoft and the asset management firm Blackstone are among those following suit, signing agreements to build data centers that will transform this region and the livelihoods of its inhabitants.

Even as other countries enact regulations to curb the expansion of data centers (and Spain’s national government weighs new restrictions), Aragon’s regional government is welcoming the companies with open arms. Touting themselves as the “Virginia of southern Europe” after the U.S. state with the largest concentration of data centers, they are taking the bet that hosting data centers will bring jobs and prepare the region for the economic shifts they believe AI will bring.

“This is a new economy that is evolving, and it’s very difficult to foresee how many activities are going to be coming around it,” said Eva Valle, the economic counsellor for the regional government. “But they are coming.”

An Amazon data center, currently under construction, is seen in Villanueva de Gallego, Spain, on Sept. 27. Aragon authorities say they are betting that hosting data centers will place them at the center of a “new economy” they believe AI will bring. But many local residents and activist groups believe these projects are delivering an environmental crisis.

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An Amazon data center, currently under construction beside the quiet village of Cuarte, Spain, on Sept. 29.
It’s being built beside the village on land close to a protected wetland.

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Companies building data centers in Spain’s Aragon region say they will mostly rely on renewable energy. But the centers will also sometimes be powered by on-site generators.

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The companies were drawn to the region with promises of large tax breaks and fast-tracked planning permissions that give these data centers a special status usually reserved for the general interest of the local population. This order gives them the power to expropriate land, strips local mayors of veto powers, and restricts the time the public has to object to 23 working days. (For the recent Amazon Web Services development, the regional government opened the window to oppose the project over the Christmas period. Opponents of the project believe they did this to try to push it through at a time when people would be paying less attention, though the government denies this.)

The Sotonera reservoir, which serves population centers and farms in the provinces of Huesca and Zaragoza, is seen in Tormos, Spain, on Sept. 29. This is one of Spain’s driest regions that, with climate change, is already suffering from repeated drought.

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The rapid approval process for these large and hyperscale facilities has left many in Aragon feeling excluded from decisions that will profoundly impact their region and lives.

“It’s going to be like living beside a prison”

Farmland that is to be developed into a data center complex is seen in Botorrita, Spain, on Sept. 28. Residents of Botorrita village say they first learned of the project when they found the survey markers poking out of the ground on the other side of their garden wall. The government of Aragon is fast-tracking planning permissions under a procedure that also significantly cuts the time the public has to object.

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The first time Silvia Baselga and her family learned of the data center soon to tower over their home was when they noticed the survey markers poking out of the ground on the other side of their garden wall. “When we saw this, we went to the city hall and said, ‘OK, we want information. This is really close to our house.'” But the local council told them they had no information. Only when the planning documents were later made public did they learn that the outer perimeter of the data center is to be built within 300 feet of their home in the hilltop village of Botorrita. The plans showed that the complex will be larger than the village itself.

Residents point to an area that is to be developed into a data center complex in Botorrita, Spain, on Sept. 28. Residents say the planned complex comes to within 80 meters of the garden wall of a family living at the village edge.

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Baselga’s parents retired here for the tranquility of a life spent in a tight-knit village community. Their home looks out over fields and gently rolling hills. To try to block the noise the data center will emit, Baselga believes the company will build a 20-foot-high wall, as happened in a nearby village. “We’re going to open the window and see nothing,” she said. Friends regularly visit at night to gaze at the stars in this rural setting. Baselga said the center’s 24-hour security lights will block out the night sky. “It’s going to be like living beside a prison.”