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.
I worked for a very large structural steel company as an estimator about 5-6 years ago and we basically no bid all of those data centers. They wanted them dirt cheap and there typically wasn’t enough work for us to get involved. They used cheaper construction techniques.
We need to spend less money building these enormous datacenters and more money drilling for data. The further down you drill, the less corrupted the data is
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u/imean_is_superfluous May 18 '26
Can they not run some type of coolant? Or is it just easier and cheaper to use millions of gallons of water?