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This series is a collaboration with Rest of World.
Northern Vietnam has just been hit by super typhoon Yagi, the strongest storm in decades. That followed the longest heat wave in 30 years in Ho Chi Minh City.
Temperatures in the city consistently exceeded 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), reaching a high of 39 degrees Celsius.
People retreated to their homes and air-conditioned offices. But gig workers for platforms like Grab, Be and ShopeeFood had no choice but to power on, delivering food and packages and driving people in the sweltering heat.
Since the Singapore-based super app Grab launched motorbike ride-hailing and delivery in Vietnam in 2014, gig drivers have become mainstays in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam’s rideshare industry was valued at $727 million in 2023 and is set more than double by 2029.
This has created jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers in a country where most people already own and ride a motorbike.
But high temperatures and frequent flooding in Ho Chi Minh City have made their work increasingly tough and dangerous.
Several workers told Rest of World that delivering food in near 40-degree heat had made them sick and unable to work for days. During the rainy season, which typically lasts for seven months, flood risks loom, posing threats to drivers and their motorbikes.
Gig workers aren’t considered employees by the platforms, and so are ineligible for sick leave, accident compensation and health insurance under Vietnamese law.
As they rely on their daily earnings to survive, workers often face the near-impossible choice of logging off without pay, or powering through a dangerously hot day.
To offer some respite, driver communities and individuals have set up rest spots in the city, where they can stop for some shade and free iced tea.
A gig worker association has also raised funds to support members with free bike repairs. Some drivers have resorted to driving in the evenings only. Many hope to eventually find a less perilous job.
As one driver put it, “I cannot do this forever.”
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Credits
Director/Producers: Duy Linh Tu, Sebastian Tuinder
Executive Producers: Jacob Templin, Cengiz Yar, Anup Kaphle
Reporter: Lam Le
Associate Producer: Juanita Ceballos
Production Assistant: Debadrita Sur
Editor: Rina Chandran
Fact Checker: Darya Marchenkova
Copy Editor: Mithila Phadke
Design: Joanne Lee
Motion Graphics: Karif Wat
Artificial intelligence lives on power and water, fed to it in vast quantities by data centres around the world. And those centres are increasingly located in the global south.
One estimate from the University of California, Riverside says AI’s total water demand by 2027 could be more than half the total annual water withdrawal of the UK. But all we really have are estimates.
Big tech firms have been secretive about the amount of public water used by individual data centres, and up to half of all data centres don’t even measure how much water they use, according to one survey.
Colon, a municipality north of Mexico City, is home to Microsoft’s first hyperscale data centre campus in the country. The town of 67,000 is suffering extreme drought. Its two dams have nearly dried up, farmers are struggling with dead crops, and families are relying on trucked and bottled water to fulfil their daily needs.
Mexico, leveraging its proximity to the US, is hoping to convince Big Tech to ‘nearshore’ their facilities here. The State of Queretaro is offering favourable land loans, cheap electricity and a pool of local talent.
Similar stories are playing out around the world. In Uruguay, Google admitted that a planned data centre in Montevideo would require 7.6 million liters of drinking water per day, while the country was suffering a historic three-year drought.
In the US, a bill has been introduced in the Senate to compel Big Tech to reveal the environmental impacts of AI after reports of conflict over water between farmers and Big Tech in the desert of Arizona.
In this episode of Context, we explore why Big Tech is choosing water-stressed regions for their water-hungry operations. And why are governments giving data centres access to water when so many of their citizens are going thirsty?
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