Ke­jan Haynes

MEX­I­CO CITY, Mex­i­co—As Trinidad and To­ba­go de­bates the ben­e­fits and risks of pro­posed da­ta cen­tres, the head of one of Latin Amer­i­ca’s largest dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture com­pa­nies says such projects should be judged by what they leave be­hind, not sim­ply by how much en­er­gy they con­sume.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia on the side­lines of the launch of CAF’s new VELA Fund in Mex­i­co City, So­mos Cap­i­tal CEO For­rest Heath said da­ta cen­tres are nei­ther in­her­ent­ly good nor bad. In­stead, gov­ern­ments should as­sess whether they cre­ate last­ing ben­e­fits for lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.