Data centers are notoriously thirsty. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found that, in 2023, the facilities consumed roughly 17 billion gallons of water for their operations in the U.S. alone. But that’s only a small part of the picture: A much, much larger share of data center water-intensity is indirect, a byproduct of the facilities’ enormous appetites for energy. That’s because most power plants themselves require huge amounts of water to operate. This off-site, indirect water consumption amounted to a whopping 211 billion gallons in the Berkeley lab’s 2023 tally — well over 10 times the direct on-site usage. As Silicon Valley continues to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence and demand for data centers grows, these water needs are only going to grow in tandem.
However, new research from Cornell University shows that there’s a way to mitigate both the climate and water footprints of these facilities: Build them in places with lots of wind and solar energy. “Location really matters,” said Fengqi You, an energy systems engineering professor at C... Read more
