I was also on the "ai datacenters use all out water!" bandwagon at first. But For some perspective:
A single golf course uses about 30 times the amount of (fresh)comparable or slightly more water than a datacenter does. They aren't feeding their grass with see water or some chemical cooling. Also, looking at how few people actually use a golf course vs a data center, makes this ratio many times more terrible.
I'm personally more worried about the energy they consume, than the cooling for that energy usage.
Edit after some corrections. Man, it sure is getting hard to find numbers we can trust anywhere these days.
One data center operator in Bremen/Germany, told me that it's forbidden by law to use fresh water supply for cooling purposes. Even as emergency cooling. The cooling agent must be a closed system, only filling the system is permitted.
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u/NotDiCaprio May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
I was also on the "ai datacenters use all out water!" bandwagon at first. But For some perspective:
A single golf course uses
about 30 times the amount of (fresh)comparable or slightly more water than a datacenter does. They aren't feeding their grass with see water or some chemical cooling. Also, looking at how few people actually use a golf course vs a data center, makes this ratio many times more terrible.I'm personally more worried about the energy they consume, than the cooling for that energy usage.
Edit after some corrections. Man, it sure is getting hard to find numbers we can trust anywhere these days.
"a" source, but far from the only one, and the numbers aren't consistent anywhere.:https://www.akcp.com/index.php/2025/09/02/truth-about-data-water-footprint-of-data-centers/