El Niño warning: How a warming Pacific could affect your next phone

A warming Pacific Ocean doesn’t sound like it should affect your next phone or laptop, but according to the World Economic Forum, this year’s El Niño carries a risk that could stretch that far.

Why a climate pattern threatens computer chips

Robert Muggah, founder of the Igarapé Institute, warns that climate shocks in general can disrupt power grids, water systems, and logistics corridors.

Semiconductor production and data centres depend on all three, and this El Niño counts among the climate shocks he means.

Chip fabrication plants use enormous volumes of ultra-pure water and stable electricity. Drought, flooding, or heat can strain regional infrastructure and put both at risk.

Semiconductors have become central to the broader AI economy. A disruption here doesn’t stay contained to one industry.

It’s worth being clear: this is a forward-looking risk assessment, not a report of disruption that’s already happened.

Why this feels different from past El Niño warnings

Muggah’s core argument is blunt: “Crises no longer arrive neatly or sequentially. They overlap, compound, and amplify one another.”

That’s the real shift here.

El Niño isn’t just a standalone weather risk anymore. It’s one variable among several that could ripple into an already fragile, hyper-connected global tech supply chain most of us rely on without a second thought.

It’s actually wild thinking a warming ocean could end up connected to something as unrelated-sounding as chip production, hey, but that’s exactly the kind of layered risk experts are now warning this El Niño could trigger.

Did you expect climate risk and tech supply chains to be connected like this, or does it seem like a stretch?