CIUDAD DE MÉXICO: Artificial intelligence holds a promising future in Latin America despite being hampered by a significant training deficit according to Google’s regional leadership.
Google Latin America vice-president Adriana Norena revealed that AI adoption rates across the region are nearly equivalent to those in the United States and Europe.
She identified the critical shortage of trained professionals as the primary obstacle currently limiting AI growth potential.
“We have a major talent shortage,” Norena stated during an interview with AFP in Mexico City.
Recent surveys indicate that Latin Americans generally maintain an optimistic outlook regarding AI’s transformative capabilities.
Media organisations globally have expressed concerns that AI tools might reduce direct traffic to their websites for information.
Norena countered these concerns by asserting that traffic to media sites has remained stable rather than decreased.
She argued that AI functions as an effective filter that directs higher quality traffic toward media platforms.
Google has achieved a remarkable corporate turnaround to establish itself as a dominant force in the AI sector after initial challenges.
Alphabet reported impressive second-quarter profits of $28.2 billion driven substantially by AI-related revenues.
The intense competition in artificial intelligence has compelled Google and other technology giants to construct extensive data centres.
These facilities house enormous servers required to manage the vast data streams generated by billions of connected devices.
Data centre projects in Latin America have encountered resistance due to their substantial water consumption demands.
An environmental court in Chile previously mandated Google to revise its plans for a $200 million data centre.
The original cooling system design would have consumed seven billion litres of water annually.
Google faced similar regulatory pressure in Uruguay regarding another proposed data centre project.
The company agreed to implement more expensive air cooling technology in both cases to drastically reduce water usage.
Norena confirmed Google’s commitment to making these data centres self-sustaining and emission-free in the near future.
Google and Agence France-Presse established a five-year content agreement in 2021 covering European markets.
The search company agreed to pay AFP an undisclosed sum for content usage under this arrangement. – AFP