Ke­jan Haynes

Jesse Ramdeo

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says pro­posed ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence da­ta cen­tres will be de­vel­oped in a spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone in Debe, with short, medi­um and long-term plans in place to meet their wa­ter needs.

Padarath is seek­ing to al­lay con­cerns over the po­ten­tial en­vi­ron­men­tal and in­fra­struc­ture im­pact of the projects, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment has been plan­ning the de­vel­op­ments across sev­er­al min­istries and that wa­ter sup­ply to res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers will not be af­fect­ed.

"The lo­ca­tion of the da­ta cen­tres are meant to be in a spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone. We are look­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly at Debe for these da­ta cen­tres in that eco­nom­ic zone," Padarath said.

He said the short-term plan in­volves cre­at­ing ponds with­in the Debe spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone to sup­port the ini­tial wa­ter re­quire­ments of the fa­cil­i­ties.

"We will have a hy­brid sys­tem in terms of util­is­ing the ponds in the first in­stance that are cre­at­ed, the man-made ponds, and then if ad­di­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply is need­ed by then the de­sali­na­tion plants would come on stream," he said.

Padarath said longer-term mea­sures in­clude pro­posed de­sali­na­tion plants in Moru­ga Table­land and Ma­yaro, which he said would re­duce re­liance on the Navet Dam and free up wa­ter sup­plies for com­mu­ni­ties in south Trinidad.

"These da­ta cen­tres, the need for sup­ply for da­ta cen­tres with re­spect to wa­ter will not im­pact in any way ser­vic­ing the com­mer­cial and the res­i­den­tial cus­tomers of WASA," he said.

His com­ments come af­ter the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the sign­ing of three Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing with Unit­ed States or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing two aimed at de­vel­op­ing da­ta cen­tres and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and a third fo­cused on restart­ing steel pro­duc­tion at Point Lisas with an em­pha­sis on strate­gic met­als.

Speak­ing lat­er that evening at the Unit­ed States' 250th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary re­cep­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port of Spain, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the agree­ments re­flect­ed the Gov­ern­ment's com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing eco­nom­ic ties with Wash­ing­ton.

She told the gath­er­ing she and U.S. Chargé d'Af­faires Philip Kern, be­fore at­tend­ing the re­cep­tion, had signed "three agree­ments with three U.S. com­pa­nies" — two for da­ta cen­tres and one to help "re­ju­ve­nate and re­build our steel in­dus­try."

"So, can I thank your com­pa­nies as well, Charge, for in­vest­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go," she said, adding that Trinidad and To­ba­go looked for­ward to deep­en­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed States.

The agree­ments, signed by For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, es­tab­lish frame­works for col­lab­o­ra­tion but re­main sub­ject to due dili­gence and fur­ther ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Un­der one MOU, Ernst & Young LLP in­tends to part­ner with third par­ties to de­vel­op a 300-megawatt da­ta cen­tre, while a sec­ond agree­ment with Hum­ming­bird AI Hold­ings LLC pro­pos­es a 150-megawatt AI in­fra­struc­ture and da­ta cen­tre, with the po­ten­tial to ex­pand to 500 MW. Ini­tial com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions are tar­get­ed for the first quar­ter of 2028, sub­ject to the project ad­vanc­ing.

The third MOU, with Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion, pro­vides a frame­work for dis­cus­sions on re­fur­bish­ing and recom­mis­sion­ing the for­mer iron and steel plant at Point Lisas. Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, the project could al­low Trinidad and To­ba­go to en­ter the vana­di­um mar­ket, a strate­gic met­al used in aero­space and de­fence ap­pli­ca­tions.

The planned da­ta cen­tres have trig­gered de­bate on­line, with some ques­tion­ing the elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter de­mands of large-scale ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture and call­ing for en­vi­ron­men­tal as­sess­ments be­fore con­struc­tion be­gins.

Sim­i­lar projects in­ter­na­tion­al­ly have al­so faced scruti­ny over their im­pact on pow­er grids, car­bon emis­sions, wa­ter us­age and lo­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

Ques­tions were al­so raised about claims cir­cu­lat­ing on­line that the Gov­ern­ment planned to use the Blue Wa­ters fa­cil­i­ty in Tacarigua as a site for an AI da­ta cen­tre and that the projects could af­fect drink­ing wa­ter sup­plies. No of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment has iden­ti­fied Blue Wa­ters as a pro­posed lo­ca­tion.

Not all re­ac­tion has been neg­a­tive, with some view­ing the in­vest­ment as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my, at­tract for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment, strength­en dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture and po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­gion­al tech­nol­o­gy hub.

The Gov­ern­ment said the three MOUs rep­re­sent po­ten­tial in­vest­ment of more than US$5 bil­lion and could cre­ate more than 5,000 skilled and se­mi-skilled jobs if the projects pro­ceed.

It stressed that all three ini­tia­tives re­main at the frame­work and due dili­gence stage and have not re­ceived fi­nal ap­proval.