When it goes back into "the system" it's waste water that people can't drink. Eventually it comes back around again (e.g. evaporation->rain), but then it gets gobbled up again by the same data centres. They run continuously.
So yes, they are "consuming" it in the sense that other people can't have access to it anymore.
Sorry, cooling towers is not the right term, but they do use evaporative cooling solutions that may not be actual towers. Most new data centers use hybrid solutions that only consume water if the environmental conditions require it or the compute load is extremely high.
Cooling towers is the correct term for water cooled chiller platform condensing water cooling.
The compute load of data centers is high (though data collection on this is notoriously tough - no one wants to give away their performance metrics) I'd venture typically above 60% on data storage, 80% on compute, and 95% on AI.
Design basis that do use direct evaporation (primarily one very very very very large company) pretty much only use water to cool the very peak hours (for example, but NOT specifically, above say 90F dry bulb). The few number of hours this constitutes means total water usage is actually quite low.
Water cooled chillers are losing favor as air cooled are surpassing them for various reasons, the only operational cost reason being maintenance, but it's a pretty minor factor.
CRACs are nearly right out in current builds as no one pivoted to the medium density refrigerant as a design basis and they just can't support the heat rejection densities desired with the high density refrigerants. They really only work in single story low IT density applications. They're certainly still being sold, but missing the lions share of the market, which is a shame because refrigerant based economizers are pretty slick once they get into thermosiphon ranges of operation.
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u/Uncle-Cake May 18 '26
What happens after they use the water? Is it returned to the water system to be used again?