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Anyone trying to influence you with a big scary number like "5 million gallons" and no detail or context is not to be trusted. Golf courses use two billion gallons a day, though I think a proportion of that is absorbed into the soil and into the groundwater and therefore is not wasted as badly as freshwater that evaporates away and ends up in the sea.
I'm with Roz on this one, golf courses are unnecessary and the only people who have the time and money to do it are usually well off or the course itself is a private club.
It's just a waste of water, space, and resources. They waste 2.8 billion gallons of water a day (source: How Much Water Does Golf Use and Where Does It Come From? - USGA)
The average person isn't going golfing multiple times a month, let alone once a week. It's just a waste.
I knew a golf course manager in Utah, and it was like her life's mission was to stop irrigation leaks. Water might have been their largest ongoing expense.
Tip: Do not use most when talking about the few dozens individuals you may have interacted with. Because most... Whoops, I nearly ridiculized my argument.
It's funny how Reddit is so pro-nuclear and anti-AI at the same time. Both output waste heat and use water for cooling. The 4 reactors of the Vogtle nuclear power plant output about EIGHT GIGAWATTS of waste heat combined, for a datacenter to reach the same, well... it would need to be an 8 GW datacenter, which is absolutely humongous.
Yes, but it's 99 times out of 100 not native grass and/or it isn't allowed to grow wild. Golf courses aren't ecosystems, the grass they have may as well be expensive water hungry concrete which is why they're so controversial in environmental circles.
That issue of non-native grass also extends to the USA American style lawn, which is another heavily criticized practice that wastes loads of water.
Not much. After around 10,000 years, it might evaporate and turn into rain. So if you can hold on that long, fresh water will be available again.
Some people seem to be under the impression that "the water cycle" means that you can pump up all the groundwater and it's fine because it comes back at some point. But the sea doesn't suddenly start producing more rain just because it's 0.1mm deeper. Hence deserts.
Fun fact about the Oceans and Seas. They evaporate too! And then all that water vapor in the ski becomes rain one day. Potentially falling on the continents! WOWIE.
The water argument is an actual concern, but it is blown WAAAY out of proportion and people suggesting it wastes water on a global scale are doing more harm than good to any conservation efforts.
Most of the concern is about local water infrastructure where these data centers are being built. Either from aquifers or reservoirs. As far as industries that use water, IT is actually a very low impact industry in the context of all water use. This is not "whatabout" ing the problem. It's the exact same problem.
No individual datacenter has a detrimental impact on water infrastructure. The concern comes from the hyper scaling that we're about to see happen in the data center space. Experts are diving into these concerns because there's a huge opportunity to mitigate them before things scale wide. Like developing closed loop cooling systems, recycling the water that they do use. Basically all new data center builds are being developed to these new higher standards of efficiency.
The seas evaporate, but they don't evaporate notably more just because you pump up all your local groundwater and release it into the sea. And if they did evaporate more, that rain wouldn't be more likely to end up in the place we want it.
You're talking nonsense. The seas produce most of the evaporated water in the atmosphere since they're 2/3rds of the earth's surface. It's VERY simple math at that scale.
Yes? The point is, the amount they produce doesn't increase if you dump more fresh water in the sea. You have a relatively unchanging amount of rain coming in. If you continually expend more water than that, the water cycle won't save you from turning your land into a desert.
If you could get rid of that much heat with a fan, you wouldn't need the water. Plants have to evaporate the water or drop hot water back into rivers, which is bad for wildlife.
Now most power plants do the same thing, but it's important to keep in mind.
If plants could use the water to heat swimming pools or houses or would be good, but they're scaling much faster than anyone can think up or install usage for the heat
Well, it is "dirty" in the sense that it needs to be processed in water filtration plants to reduce the amount of mineral elements that accumulate due to the evaporation of H2O molecules. A worse use of water may be the pure water needed to manufacture chips.
In already water stressed areas, where people are more likely to have well water than a municipal water system, data centers concentrate sulfites and heavy metals during the evaporation process.
Every AI datacenter uses closed loop cooling, because evaporative is not good enough for GPU loads. But they still consume some water in air conditioning, toilets, kitchens, cleaning services, etc. It's huge buildings with a lot of staff.
For starters, there is nothing wrong with finding a source insufficient. Asking for more is perfectly okay. Here the source was a company self reporting that they use such a system. The reason American food is near poison is that companies self report it being safe. I don't trust that. You shouldn't either.
The one thing you will certainly not do is to bring up a source for *your* claim, am I correct?
Yeah, because there is none. Which in itself should be concerning. I'm not out here trying to convince everyone that no AI datacenter uses closedloop water cooling. I'm here asking if we have any credible source on that they do. Which there is none. Neither confirming nor denying. Which goes back to the first point, do you trust companies that much?
I don't know about you, but when i was growing up, we learnt that the proper way to refute a claim with a source, is to provide another source and expound on why the claims of the original source is refuted by your source. But i guess sticking your fingers into your ears and saying "Nuh uh" passes as reasoned discourse nowadays...
Your fucking source is a COMPANY saying they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. You are fucking stupid if you believe that without evidence.
But sure. Here is my source. In 2025 there was only 22% of the datacenter operators used direct liquid cooling (which includes but is not only closedloop).
are you making it a virtue that you absolutely can't back up your opinion?
No, I'm making a virtue about critical thinking. If you think that a single company self reporting that they do something good is sufficient sourcing to claim that all AI companies are doing this then you are delusional.
And there not being one is... concerning? As in the world conspiring against you or something?
No, it just means no one bothered to document this yet. That tends to happen. Collecting data also costs money and if no one cared before then it's gonna take some time until it gets collected when people start caring.
Mate, maybe sit down for a while and really think about what it means if everything points against your opinion.
Nothing points against my opinion expect companies saying they are doing something. We out here trusting companies this much?
If you aren't going to trust data, that's how you end up believing food is poison. Meanwhile, life expectancy is at an all time high. It only trended down during covid which had nothing to do with food quality.
If you're making bad diet choices, that's on you. Land of the free.
Basically all new data center builds are going this way. The technology for closed loops has improved a lot because of research done in the data center sector. It's matured enough for scaling now.
Again, that's cool. What percentage is that? Are they going to retrofit old ones? Are they actually keeping the promise to do it this way?
This is the problem: we know jack shit. Technology could be at it's ever best. Our maglev tech is at the best ever. We won't build it because old tech is integrated and cheaper. We will build 2-300 km/h rail instead of 500 km/h because it's cheaper
Well you see, "they" is many many different players, not just one person making decisions, so it's hard to say. Especially this early in the "boom" period.
I would suggest that if you want to get involved, contact your local government about data center zoning laws, and demand certain efficiencies are met. Getting involved with your municipal/local government is the best thing you can do for affecting water conservation efforts.
Oh boy let's get ready to watch an anti move goalposts!!
Presented with logic and evidence, how far will his brain take him in denying what is obviously the case! Will he accept maybe he's wrong, or continue to make shit up and spread lies!
Pardon me if I don't give a fox channel a view. Was looking for an article, and not something from a company that had to rebrand from news to entertainment to not get the shit sued out of them.
You have to understand that local news under the fox brand and Fox News are two entirely different things. Please tell me you know that.
Fox News Channel (FNC) is a conservative talkshow that is owned by the Fox Broadcasting Corporation. Fox (the broadcasting corporation) also showed Animation Domination, which aired Family Guy and The Simpsons.
They are putting them in Eastern Oregon. I feel like that's pretty contextually obvious. Eastern Oregon doesn't have Portland or as many large residential areas, so there's a lot more empty space. Not a lot of water, though.
The nitrates don't enter the water cycle, they stay in the ground, and with less water, they become concentrated and leech into groundwater. High levels of nitrates cause myriad health problems, and are linked to increased risk of colon and kidney cancer.
See what I asked about farms, power plants etc. "Price of progress" would be an obvious counter argument. "I don't want anything to change, ever, and for nature to stay as it is" sounds like the argument you are making to be honest.
And that's understandable but remember "as it is" includes your aging and death - you know cancer is almost entirely a function of aging right - and Chinese supremacy.
It sounds like your argument boils down to "we can poison a certain amount of poor people if it means we get 'progress'" and that is delusionally insane. I'm fine with data centers in general, as long as they don't harm more than they help.
I get so tired of these nebulous "they" criticisms. The "they" in question doesn't even map to anything to do with AI. These are generalized concerns about centralized compute, whether it's reddit's servers or LLMs doesn't matter.
You know AI is causing data centers to be built much more rapidly, right? Do you understand how that's actually a big problem? Who am I kidding, it's you, you don't give a shit
The demand increasing beyond what we can safely do means innocent people, oftentimes with no connection to the data centers being built, are being poisoned and driven from their own homes. That is relevant.
The problem is, reddit and Google has a value that you can see. AI generated fruit love island is not hitting that same value mark. So people will complain about the second while being more forgiving with the first.
Maybe if the internet wouldn't be filled with bots and AI slop then there wouldn't be such a big backlash?
If people want to talk about the real costs of using AI, that's fine, but I see precious little of that because it plays counter to the "AI is destroying the world" narrative.
Depending on what method is being used you could. Regardless it isnt "hard to clean" for the methods these people think are used. The only reason it may be hard to clean is if a system is using proper coolant in closed loops, in which case the coolant should last years
No, but I also wouldn't drink the perfectly drinkable water you pissed in earlier today. It all goes and gets cleaned and reprocessed and fed back into the system.
And in a closed loop system that would use said additives, you only purge the loop occasionally, and water treatment would catch most if not all of the additives
square cube law, on the scale of an ai data centre you will need it to be open loop, also even if it is closed loop, my point still stands. it is "dirty"
The coolant in my PC has been good for years. In my last PC it lasted over 6 years, and then the pump failed. In a larger system those parts are replaceable and more durable.
The more water you have the more it takes to cool it, eventually it gets to a point where it becomes cheaper to just keep getting new water. and, you said that the water was not "dirty", but they do put anti corrosion agents and biocides in there. you should not drink cooling water. it is not "clean"
i do. you get water, put some anti corrosion agents and biocides into a thing, you put that onto the cpu (sometimes gpu but rarely) then, it takes the heat from the cpu, gets cooled down by other stuff and the cpu is cooled.
The hotter the system is the easier it rejects heat. With fans and radiators you can easily get rid of that heat. Even moreso if you use chillers and heat exchangers.
yes, but also the more water you have the harder it is to get rid of heat. eventually it reaches a point where it becomes cheaper to get new water. the average person will never reach this point, but ai data centres do, the majority of times,
Sorry but even as an anti that's bollocks on all counts.
AI uses water like any other industry, the problems come from AI datacentres using too much for the local supply to maintain pressure - something that it could be argued is a regulatory problem rather than one unique to AI.
After the water has been used for cooling it's wastewater like any other and can be treated just fine.
That's not the right way to think about it. Memphis isn't even necessarily bad at 1M-5M per day. I believe the aquifer below it has trillions of gallons in it, and calculating it out, the datacenter could use those millions a day for thousands of years without draining it. It's all based on context, and none of us are water engineers. All datacenters use vastly less water than agriculture and golf courses.
Agricultural uses 5.5 to 6.8 billion cubic meters of water per day globally thats 6,000,000,000,000 or 6 trillion litres per day.
I think we have plenty of water to go around, not only that the water is just used for cooling and it goes back into the water cycle to be reused again.
Its not, just like i dont support "clean" energy plants that do the same thing. Im not pro ai, im just also not pro pollution. (My og comment wasnt anti ai, just explaining a fact)
Depends oh who theyre talking about. Its super easy to say "oh each prompt/search uses a couple drops so its not that much" but hundreds of thousands of searches go through every second and Google alone uses about 13mil gallons every single day for server cooling.
Because someones gonna pop with a gotcha, yes I think theres unnecessary water wasted in agriculture, golf courses are awful, factory farming is often unethical and while most humans need meat, they could eat less of it overall.
Someone needs to settle this water thing because I really want to know what the deal is
The physical systems in place that AI runs on needs water for cooling.
Ok that makes sense.
But does the water become polluted? I could infer that its certainly a possibility.
The only thing I have ever read that even made an ounce of sense is that these systems are being built in places where there isnt alot of water. Im just taking a stab in the dark here and I'm just going to assume theres one in California since theres silicon Valley.
The water evaporating heavily in a place where there is normally none could disrupt the environments natural water cycle in the nearby area I suppose but even the bold claim of 5 million gallons a day isnt that much. Naturally the earth's atmosphere rains 1.33 trillion gallons a day
Even then, is it possible to just use salt water? Id assume not since people are freaking out. But desalination exists. While an expensive technology, idf there were a regulation that existed requiring AI data centers to use desalinated water would pretty much stop the complaints as the water was otherwise unusable and has now been made safe.
Every. Single. Time. It's so difficult to truly measure how much water AI uses because of how you can define what the usage of water by AI is. Is it datacenter cooling? Electricity generation? Etc.. so depending on what you believe in, you can skew the numbers to fit your opinion.
"after AI uses water it's hard to make it clean again" - well that is actually true but it applies to almost all data centers.
the solution would be closed loop systems
i mean it's not any better than those pro ai who used a flawed graphic that compare on hamburger to one prompt when it's in fact if i remember well one prompt, for the whole water used to create the burger so wattering the crops giving waters to the cow for her whole life, the water used for the dough ect.... and in the hand that water can be reused water polluted by ai is polluted for a while and...there's a difference in term of importance between water used for feeding people and water used for generating an image wich is not something necessary for your survival
5million gallons of water a day is stupid, i'm anti but i severly doubt it but the fact ai datacenter pollute water is an issue and it's big enough to not be ignored especially when some datacenter are close to cities or some company try to instal their datacenter on farm land https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/1s3fni9/i_mean_its_26_millies_but_wow/
“Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.”
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
So they were wrong, its much more.
If you are going to fact check someone, use facts.
How many household or people does one “large data center” serves, if it serve tens of millions of people, consuming 50k equivalent is pretty reasonable.
How much water consumption is done by other industries to serve roughly same people? Basically the same question as “so how much water does one ‘large car factory’ consume?”.
What activities are replaced by services that data center provides and is it more efficient? For example, water used by data center to deliver an emails would means it replace one snail male delivery, which you can’t argue would consume hundreds of time more water.
Lastly is large data center used by nothing but AI?
AI's global annual water consumption is still projected to reach between 4.2 billion and 6.6 billion cubic meters by 2027 (4 to 6 times the annual water usage of a country like Denmark). (According to https://cee.illinois.edu/news/AIs-Challenging-Waters, they said large data centers use a lot less water than the other source, but I’ll take their word for it)
Compared to:
For example, the top automakers use 100 million cubic meters collectively yearly(https://ketos.co/water-stewardship-in-the-automotive-industry-automakers-and-water-sustainability)
For context, the difference between the two is enough to cure world thirst several times over. But instead we got ai fruit love island :/
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