Sheinbaum Says Mexico Should Not Be a Data Center for Other Places, Because It Requires a Lot of Energy and Water

This article by Arturo Sánchez Jiménez originally appeared in the August 18, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

“We do have to have data centers to advance in artificial intelligence, but Mexico does not necessarily have to be the data center for other places in the world, because it requires a lot of energy consumption, a lot of water consumption,” the president stated.

At her morning press conference, the head of the federal Executive was asked about alleged electricity blackouts that had halted data-center investments in Querétaro. In this regard, Sheinbaum Pardo affirmed that facilities of that type have arrived in that state, as well as in other areas of the national territory.

She maintained that data centers do generate economic growth, but “with very little employment and a lot of consumption of natural resources. And of course we have to have the ones necessary to develop artificial intelligence in the country, but also with planning.”

She maintained that, according to the reports of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), complaints about power outages have decreased, but she pointed out that “there are some areas where, more than anything, investment in transmission and distribution is required, more than in generation.”

She clarified that investments in electricity “do not happen from one day to the next. They take their time. Often they are one year, two years, three years, even in particular for combined-cycle plants. But work is being done, and we even designed a mixed-investment scheme that did not exist, which is 54 percent public, 46 percent private, that allows us to comply with the law and at the same time have external investment to grow the national electricity system.”