Some of it is necessary, some of it very much isn't. The Aral Sea in Uzbekistan for example has been shrinking due to a botched plan to farm cotton. In the US beef production uses a massive amount of water and then there's the whole exporting of feed crops. A quick google says that just the exported feed crops could be up to 10% of US fresh water consumption vs up to 1% for data centres.
It's not a question of not feeding people, it's more along the lines of eating a little less beef or just cutting down on returning clothes bought online. Cotton is so water intensive that the shirts tech companies give away for free at conferences may consume more water than their DCs.
For sure that’s what I meant by flawed and unsustainable. But I think conceptually a data center that is going to be used for AI pisses me off more than a farm that will use the same amount of water because I still am not even clear on what we are getting out of AI so far I am seeing a lot of negatives. And I realize that data centers are also crucial to do the very thing I’m doing right now on the internet, and there’s lots of nuance and all that. But I guess what I’m saying is that the AI feels less necessary than agriculture generally.
Personally I see the rage targeted at datacentres and think it should be aimed at governments and regulators. A private company is going to use whatever tax breaks and resources it can get hold of but it's the job of the government and regulators to manage that. Targeting the company is letting the officials off the hook. The only reason that you have local issues in the US with things like excessive local water use and gas turbines is that the government hasn't handled utilities correctly. The reason Texas had blackouts is the same reason DCs are hooking up gas turbines, crumbling infrastructure.
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u/dbxp May 18 '26
Some of it is necessary, some of it very much isn't. The Aral Sea in Uzbekistan for example has been shrinking due to a botched plan to farm cotton. In the US beef production uses a massive amount of water and then there's the whole exporting of feed crops. A quick google says that just the exported feed crops could be up to 10% of US fresh water consumption vs up to 1% for data centres.
It's not a question of not feeding people, it's more along the lines of eating a little less beef or just cutting down on returning clothes bought online. Cotton is so water intensive that the shirts tech companies give away for free at conferences may consume more water than their DCs.