That association still holds: Four of the six biggest users of hydro today are Brazil, Russia, India and China, the Bric nations synonymous with the idea of rapid economic development. That may be changing, however. The rise of data centres mining cryptocurrencies and training AI models is providing a new market for the vast volumes of electricity produced by hydro. That risks destroying the math that for decades has made dams an essential tool of development.
For seven decades, poor countries wanting to get rich have turned again and again to dams.
For the post-independence leaders of Egypt and Ghana in the 1950s, hydroelectricity and sovereignty were inextricably linked. Building vast irrigation and electricity projects across the Nile and the Volta was a prerequisite if they were to catch up with their former colonial masters.
