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- 0.16% (high estimate) of global water usage by the way.
- This statistic doesn't show the disproportionate effect it may have on local communities close to these AI datacenters.by quikoa
- Can someone explain why the data centers are using this insane amount of water. What's the ratio of closed system, evaporation?, and straight-down-the-drain water?
- The use is definitely for cooling, but I'd also be curious to know what happens to the water later. If it's a closed loop circulation, the water should be returned back to the environment, just warmer than it was originally. Surely that wouldn't be so bad?
- The water use is for cooling and sometimes includes indirect use for electricity generation. But before you call it "insane amounts of water" consider that the 700.000 liters quoted for training GPT-3 is less than 1 time spraying a 9 acres field, which is the size of a tiny hobby farm not a real farm.by t0mas88
- I agree that water is an important resource but the wording of "consumption" always rubbed me the wrong way. Is the water contaminated with chemicals? Maybe heat? Can people or wildlife consume it? Can you use rainwater?
- You can't drink it once it's gone through a bunch of mouldy pipes, no.by 113
- > I agree that water is an important resource but the wording of "consumption" always rubbed me the wrong way
While the Earth is (mostly[1]) a closed system when it comes to water, any particular region on Earth is not a closed system with respect to clean drinking water.
Deplete groundwater reserves faster than they refill? No more water for you. Raise the ambient temperature far enough that the rainclouds go somewhere cooler? No more water for you. As long as your usage is below the replacement rate, all seems well. Imbalance the system, and you have indeed "consumed" your local water supply.
> Is the water contaminated with chemicals? Maybe heat?
Typically yes. Definitely yes.
> Can people or wildlife consume it?
With enough water purification infrastructure, sure. I'm not aware of very many datacenters installing such infrastructure.
> Can you use rainwater?
It's all rainwater, whether directly or indirectly. The question is what would have benefited from that rainwater had it not been redirected to a datacenter?
by swiftcoder - Water consumption of AI is a non-issue. Why even spend research and policymaking resources on this?by exizt88
- For who?by trolleski
- I think one of the more interesting points is this:
> Two-thirds of post-2022 data centers are located in water-stressed regions.
I don't think it's wrong to ask questions about that _IF_ you also ask questions about all the other usages of water, like the Californian almond stuff.
Just saying "You shouldn't use AI because it uses too much water" is kind of ridiculous.
by skerit - ...I don't think you can declare that something is a non-issue without having spent at least some resources to determine whether it is?by Intralexical
- Misconception of the year. If you can guarantee the steam it produces rains down in areas that actually re-join the water cycle easily, you might be right (even though you still have to cover the just in time demand). You can not guarantee that though.
Best regards, European person where lakes dry out atm.
by sevenzero - Who could have guessed this would end up with many polarised "massive problem" / "not a problem" commentsby sceptic123
- The issue with AI datacenters was never about water. Water is an easily dismissable strawman that sloppers love to bring on.
The real issue with AI datacenters is the huge amounts of wasted energy, after decades of energy efficiency efforts.
- >Water is an easily dismissable strawman that sloppers love to bring on.
unreal fucking chutzpah. even here, where current thing activists do occasionally get challenged with indisputable evidence debunking their wild claims, they still stubbornly cling to the water narrative. on reddit and other spaces populated by the intellectual majority, it's gospel that every chatgpt query consumes a lake.
by vlyan - "Wasted" is a word people use to mean "used for a purpose I personally do not value".
Try persuading people to share your values.
by Hizonner - I agree energy use is the more concerning issue, while water has probably caught more press because it's more tangible. But there's no getting around thermodynamics. That "wasted energy" is dissipated using large amounts of water.by Intralexical
- Additionally, using more water allows datacenters to be more energy efficient because evaporative cooling uses less energy than dry cooling. Datacenters outside of water stressed areas should absolutely being using water because doing so is better for the environment.by elil17
- The eagerness of the corps to switch from "we're all green" to 'fuck Earth with AI' is stunning. I was always suspicious towards the 'corporate left' but this one takes the cake. We must never trust those people again.by trolleski
- lol no, if this is the case then we would have banned beef: a grossly inefficient protein source that takes absurd amount of energy and water, and produce significant greenhouse gas waste. We would also ban disposable cheap goods.
Yet we don't.
If people don't like AI, they should just say so, no need to skirt around.
by dudisubekti - Did we somehow mass build pure lossy evaporatively cooled data-centres in the AI era while I was asleep ? Most of them im familiar with lose at best 3-4% of their water per day due to recovery systems even when they are evaporative or open loop to a lake. Yet nearly everyone I hear talking about this seems to treat it as if they lose 100% of their water loop contents per day as if it’s a matter-antimatter destruction system…by cannonpr
- The systems used for LLMs are several times more power-hungry than traditional servers. Like, 50-100kW per rack of B200s.by Intralexical
- The last datacenter I stepped inside (an FB datacenter in the southwest), they were very proud of how the whole thing operated as a giant swamp cooler. Unclear how they could have been limiting their losses all that much, given the evaporative stacks were open to the outside breezeby swiftcoder
- I stumbled on that as well. I thought that water is used to cool but not consumed such as oil is - even I see the ecosystem problem of warm waste water. However, what doesn’t remove drinking water, right?
Even if the water evaporates, it will enter the ecosystem as such and eventually end up as liquid water again. Or am I totally mistaken?
by MASNeo - The paper refers to "indirect water use in electricity generation, and water-intensive semiconductor manufacturing".
Water use in electricity generation is significant. In the England we are in the middle of a drought and it is surprising to realise that electricity generation uses 2.5x more ('environmentally extracted') water than public supply and 10x more than agriculture.
by Delphiza - One can criticize ai data centers but the "water consumption"-argument is by far the least-intelligent one and on track on becoming the same kind of populist urban myth that got Germany cancelling (ie destroying) its nuclear plants in order to... checks notes.... save the world.by woodpanel
- Whether or not you think water use is bad for AI, another aspect hard to ignore with it is that the closed loop systems are mixing PFAs into the water for closed loop systems
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/04/pfas-pol...
by TSiege - I'm probably being dense, but if it's closed loop, why is that a problem?by fragmede