en.Wedoany.com Reported - Port of Spain, July 12, 2026 – The government of Trinidad and Tobago has signed agreements with U.S. companies to clear preliminary hurdles for deploying large-scale data centers in the country, sparking concerns over energy consumption and potential environmental impacts.
According to a statement from the office of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the government has signed memorandums of understanding with Florida-based Hummingbird AI Holdings and New York-based Ernst and Young LLP. These are the first agreements of their kind signed by this Caribbean nation.
The agreement with Ernst and Young establishes a framework for jointly developing a large-scale data center, with the company planning to "develop in partnership with third parties" a 300-megawatt data center. The agreement with Hummingbird AI Holdings sets up a framework for "initial collaboration, due diligence, and coordination" for a proposed 150-megawatt AI infrastructure and data center facility. The megawatt value of a data center represents its operational power capacity at peak load; a 300-megawatt data center has a power capacity of 300 million watts.
These deals have sparked questions online about the environmental impact of data centers. Activist Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh expressed concerns over the energy consumption of the planned data centers, noting that the government is "trying to present something that looks like development but is not development."
Trinidad and Tobago has long faced chronic water shortages and intermittent supply, raising concerns that water-intensive data centers could add pressure to an already strained water system. Most areas of the twin-island nation follow a water supply schedule set by the state-owned water company, with many households relying on storage tanks as tap water may be available only once a week; in some cases, communities go weeks without national water supply.
According to a report by the United Nations University, data centers could account for nearly 3% of global projected electricity consumption by 2030, reaching 935 terawatt-hours. The report states that the carbon footprint of data centers is already comparable to that of some of the world's largest countries.
Electricity supply in Trinidad and Tobago has improved in recent years, though occasional outages still occur in some areas, albeit rarely. The government also signed a third agreement with Pinnacle Steel and Vanadium Corporation, a U.S. company that recently acquired a local steel mill, allowing for further negotiations to restart the facility.
The government stated that these three initiatives are expected to create over 5,000 jobs in total. Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has been a staunch supporter of the Trump administration, and her office said the U.S. government played a role in facilitating the agreements between the parties.
