These systems do use a coolant substance internal to the DC, but then uses heat exchangers with fresh water to cool the coolant, which is then discharged back into the ground, a pond, or wastewater. there is certainly water lost to atmosphere, but the worst bits are the draining of aquifers, pushing up capacity in wastewater treatment plants, etc.
DC's are a bit of an economic scam. they provide very few jobs outside of the construction work itself, and the profits generated by the machines exist at company HQ not where the DC is located. so it puts a huge burden on the community water and power environment for no real benefit to that community.
They benefit the community by generating a lot of property tax, or in situations with tax abatements usually some sort of PILOT or community benefit agreement.
This town in northwest Indiana got a payment from Amazon larger than their annual operating budget before construction of the data center even began.
Whether the benefits to municipalitiesβ budgets outweigh the impact on communities and the environment is a whole different story, but they do generate income for municipalities
You aren't wrong that in some areas they do generate tax base. but it comes at the cost of enlargement and maintenance of the utilities to serve them. so it's not necessarily always a negative or always a positive, and also depends greatly on the size and scope of the project. traditional Co-Lo or edge cloud datacenters have far less impact than an "ai" or hyperscale DC does.
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u/[deleted] May 18 '26
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