Am I the only one who finds it extremely infuriating to a mind-numbingly scale that people continue to regurgitate the same exact statement 'AI is draining our oceans', etc, when it's probably the most performative and incorrect thing you can say.
Water usage for AI is a very real issue, however it is a regional and local issue. As far as I am aware, the datacenters use methods using evaporation or recycling water, basically displacing the water rather then erasing it. Very far from a global critical issue.
I feel like the blame shouldn't really be on AI or necessarily the datacenters, but instead on zoning laws. I mean, placing a datacenter in the Arizona desert is just stupidity and a failure in zoning, not a blame on AI in my opinion. I just feel like it hurts actual good awareness in regards to AI by just spouting the same performative misinformation rather than researching the topic for even a second.
Not to mention, nearly all new datacenters are moving to closed loop systems in which the water consumption is greatly reduced and or negligible.
Hank Green just put out a great video on the issue of these misconceptions.
TLDR:
- Its too complicated to sum up the entire picture in a neat little package for anyone to understand.
- AI companies don't tell media the full story, because why the fuck would they.
- The media and detractors deliberately twist the numbers to make it look so much worse than it is.
- Clowns on the internet will take whichever puts out a statement that aligns with their preferred beliefs, then parrot it as if its absolute fact over and over again.
Like you say - its an issue. It's nothing even vaguely close to other water issues. AMERICAN Corn uses exponentially more water than the GLOBAL AI sector. So much so that AI isn't even going to tip the scales slightly until we make our current data centres look like tiny little home PCs.
spot on
Its not draining our oceans, but I have seen a repost of a news video where they interviewed a woman who was rather close to one of these AI datacenters, they showed how little water pressure they had, and how much sediment was in their water.
Also still with closed loop systems, they need to fill those systems to start off with, and I've heard of datacenters being placed in areas without much water.
that's basically my point. it 100% causes regional issues, however its a far cry from how people are making it out to be. but yes, datacenters being placed in arid regions is definitely a problem which goes back to my point in regards to zoning issues.
they just dont want to blame the person actually responsible for the water problems. the politician that approved it without the proper infrastructure. this broken logic its like blaming the bullet for school shootings, or their partner cheating on the person they cheated with.
Nope even worse actually the person to blame is themselves. in everything I've read about this subject it always comes down to the city not voting for proper upgrades on their water infrastructure. They democratically voted for this, no one is to blame except the people themselves who voted.
It isn’t really the public’s responsibility to be aware of or really care about the potential for issues created by a change in services. That is 110% the job of the government and utility services to identify and fix. If you pay money into the services, it’s their job to ensure continuity of quality.
They did, they said they needed more money for the job and the democracy, the public decided no. It's really that simple. If they don't pay enough money it is their fault for the continued bad quality.
Changes in water infrastructure do not change the carrying capacity of the aquifer. They could've bought 100 brand new pumps and still would have the same result.
I agree that it's wrong, and I believe it's more productive to mention which exact company uses those particular data centers and blame it directly, not the ambigous AI boogieman.
Which datacenter? What town? Because that sounds like the town that was having the same problems because the inhabitants were over-watering their lawns.
My understanding is that the sediment and pressure changes related to disturbance from construction (which would have resulted from any large scale industrial project) not from the AI water use itself.
Nevertheless, the impacts of building industrial facilities near residences should be considered regardless of the industry.
that datacenter wasnt even operational.... or even completed.
Thats a construction issue.
Which proves there's a woman living close to some DC that might or might not use water for cooling and said woman has low water pressure and sediment in the water. And if I remember correctly, the DC from that video had regular AC on the roof, not evaporative cooling devices.
?
The fact that some woman in a video has poor water pressure is likely unrelated to her living close to a DC.
Incorrect. There's plenty of research coming out showing the proximity to data centers = increased stress on aquifers and municipal supplies.
I've worked as a geologist in my earlier career. Sediment in your water and low water pressure suddenly always corresponds to higher stress on an aquifer. Considering that data centers add the consumption of around 1,000 households per day to a municipal supply, using Occam's Razor, the data center is most likely the culprit for sediment and low water pressure in surrounding communities.
Aquifers don't just choose to produce less and get dirty. That only happens when extraction rates increase. They aren't this esoteric, magical geologic feature.
Edit: An extra zero was transposed.
You forgot one major problem. Those municipalities having problems from what I've seen all come down to recent elections where they voted to NOT upgrade their water infrastructure. Occams razor does not account for democracy choosing this outcome.
Because, shockingly, groundwater has a limit. They don't need to upgrade these pumps, groundwater pumps can up their rate anytime they need to. It doesn't change the damage to the aquifer. You can't vote to upgrade your aquifer. It doesn't work like that.
That's like saying "rocks are made from sediment". It's true for a lot of them, but totally wrong for many of them.
It's the average.
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
Slight correction, I added an extra zero which I will edit out but leave the fact that I originally mentioned 10,000 when I meant 1,000.
Which, by the way, still adds incredible stress to an aquifer. A household is usually 3 people on average. That's adding the equivalent of 3,000 people per day from one source. That's massive.
If it's the one that went viral, it was a result of damage to the water well caused by the construction company. The DC hadn't started operation yet
Construction companies don't do that. I've been on thousands of hydrogeologic sites and there has never been one instance of a construction company causing that extensive and long lasting damage to an aquifer.
Increasing pumping rates for the municipality in anticipation of a data center... Absolutely causes that kind of damage.
It wasn't extensive and long lasting damage, but there was a viral clip from the Meta Memphis data center where water pressure from a private well was low and brown.
The surface level observation that was supposed to be inferred was that AI was sucking up all the water, but the center wasn't operational yet.
The actual accusation being made was that the construction resulted in excess sediment debris in the well, which the homeowner wasn't prepared for.
Whether or not that is an accurate recounting of specifics, it's worth noting that this is the absolute worst case scenario- that whatever water impact there was had nothing to do with the water utilization of the data center
Yes because the way municipalities work, they need to up the extraction rate before the center is finished. Which would cause the damage. Which only happened because the data center was zoned.
are you guessing or do you have any facts about this specific example? not just your anecdotes?
The facts are that the only cause for this kind of result is increased groundwater extraction, and this happened after a municipality installed a data center that increased water extraction.
To a former geologist, you're basically asking if you have any facts that prove that water is a liquid other than your own anecdotes.
so no, no you dont. cool story it would have been better with dragons and tits and stuff
Seriously? Are you a child?
https://groundwater.org/threats/overuse-depletion/
Source. Which you could find with two seconds on google.
https://issues.org/glennon/
Another one.
https://lailluminator.com/2025/07/27/water-aquifer/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06879-8
https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/land-subsidence
https://krakensense.com/blog/the-impacts-of-urbanization-on-aquifer-recharge
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211714824000360
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/08/climate/sinking-cities-us-causes-groundwater.html
https://interconnectedrisks.org/2023/tipping-points/groundwater-depletion
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2024/01/31/assessing-impacts-of-drought-water-extraction-on-groundwater-from-space/
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/11/groundwater-pumping-drives-rapid-sinking-in-california
https://lifestyle.sustainability-directory.com/term/groundwater-over-extraction/
https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Groundwater-Management/Subsidence
This enough? You want dragons? Is your attention span too short for these?
If it's the one that went viral, the DC that was built in 2018 was for Facebook operations and was not built for AI.
It is entirely irrelevant to AI, but that video either did bad research or lied to get them clicks
I think I saw the same one. It was one of those stories where they keep saying "Person X claims this" so you know the company even thinks it's BS.
That same lady voted for less taxes to go towards upgrading their water infrastructure... Almost like they democratically chose for that result?
In the story in question the woman -believes- that the data center disrupted her well but hasn't shown that to be true. Meta commissioned a study and the study found that they weren't impacting the water table. Grain of salt, obviously, but on the other side of the coin the issue could conceivably be a simple maintenance issue on the part of the homeowner.
Point is we don't know, but it apparently makes a juicy story for people to "draw their own conclusions."
That was one person. I dont think we should pivot multi billion dollar decisions because one person uses a well instead of tap water
They can also import water from other places
Using her anecdotal evidence is a correlation fallacy, though. It's one data point, but not news worthy.
There's more than one? Google scholar "Data Center Water Consumption"
There's a lot of research on this subject.
My point was that the interview was 'feelings, not facts'. Both things can be true. The research shows that it CAN be an impact, locally, if they're built in places without the infrastructure to sustain them. But without either of us having this SPECIFIC news story, it IS still a correlation fallacy. Otherwise, globally, they consume less than 0.05% of total water use and are a non-factor.
That's global. But it's heavily concentrated wherever they are built. Comparing the usage globally is frankly disingenuous to the conversation at hand.
Literally every industry ever is concentrated in water usage where the factory is. Can you link me to anywhere on reddit where you've previously complained about a leather tannery using up a bunch of local water? Or a shower curtain manufacturer? Or a shoe factory? No? Just hyper specifically AI despite nothing being special about it in this regard? Interesting.
I used to regulate all of those industries as part of my career. But I guess the real test of caring is posting on Reddit. My mistake.
You ever go to a work site in 20 degree weather in full Level 4 PPE to do groundwater visualization on a site that used to be a paper mill? No? Then don't lecture me on how much I care about this.
Yes, actually, lobbying in your free time when you aren't getting paid for your work, for this and not for those, is an indicator you care more than other examples. Why do you care more when it's better than the average industry in this regard?
Because it's an excuse for being biased against this industry for other reasons that you don't think would be as convincing if you said whatever those are instead.
And what's your solution anyway, even if you did care deeply about like 90% of all industries that are like this or worse? Shut down all industries? Return to monkey? Sure we could pass better EPA regulations, and I'm on board with that, but that's not an issue to bring to corporations, or to bring on one random industry subreddit. That's a lobbying issue for political races overall.
Oh so we can't ever talk about anything relating regulation here?
Come on dude. Stop trying to weasel around the topic by making silly purity tests and engage with the actual problem at hand.
??? I don't think you read my comment, because this was simply a nonsensical reply: I was literally just talking about regulations without you even bringing it up.
So you read the last line of my statement, but ignored the middle? Third sentence. Do better.
You wrote at the end that they are a non factor due to their low global usage. Which is heavily disingenuous.
That was not what I said.
"Otherwise, globally, they consume less than 0.05% of total water use and are a non-factor."
This does not mean they are a non-factor locally. This means that they are a non-factor GLOBALLY.
Has the conversation at any point been about global usage? If so, that's a fair point to bring up. However, I haven't mentioned global usage once.
In this conversation, no. However, It's frequently part of the topic. Many antis like to make the claim that datacenters are a significant contributor to climate change - which is ONLY in effect on a global scale. One of the things they cite to assert this is the water usage. I include the statistic in conversations for more visibility.
Now, are we done here?
Okay but like, I can be mad at both. An inactive/inattentive government is not a free pass for a company/industry to exacerbate issues without moral judgement, only legal judgement. So even if it’s not “as bad” as people say, it’s still not good and they’re still definitely not helping existing issues while also creating new ones
i agree, i just generally dislike the blind blame on the AI boogeyman so to speak each and every time instead of holding the correct entities responsible
The usage is also way less than it's made out to be like, in Texas it accounts for 1% or water use. The big water waster has always been agriculture, specifically trying to grow crops in too-warm places like Texas and compensating for the heat by over watering. Just cut the agriculture waste and lot of water problems would be gone
Well worth watching this video to get a balanced perspective on this topic: https://youtu.be/H_c6MWk7PQc?si=uGv85eCBqNrPWIef
That's Hank Green's "Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use?"
Amazing video. Covers a lot of the issues.
Displacement of water IS a global issue... I get really tired of going over this. Please study environmental science
Sorry just figured I had to remind you they exist considering you don’t seem to care unless they’re affected by a glove factory. Guess not tho cuz what you linked has nothing to do with gloves.
It’s not bad to care about people having clean drinking water more than you to be able to feel like you can draw. Not having clean drinking water isn’t a “nothing issue to gum up the system” you’re just a selfish piece of shit.
I still don’t give a fuck about the gloves dude you’ve given me no reason to care about the gloves. Fuck the gloves, burn the glove factories along with the data centers. It’s Google 2.0 not internet 2.0. It’s a fancy search engine, not the second coming of christ.
The EPA is shitty who would’ve guessed. It’s not just low water pressure boss. It’s sediment, sludge, dirt. They damaged one lady’s personal well on her family home and told her “we’ll try to be better neighbors”. You’re still just being a bootlicker. Why do you think the EPA isn’t doing its job? The corporate lobby from basically every major company that wants it to be legal to dump their garbage wherever they want cuz it’s cheaper that way? Nah couldn’t be that. Shit like even if people’s water isn’t being cut off, their water bills are going up, their power bills are going up, they’re receiving no compensation from said companies who’s back yard they’re posted in, people are leaving their homes because they can’t deal with it.
Like seriously what are YOU using AI for that makes it worth it? I’m genuinely curious.
Let them sink into the abyss of their own lies. The more the repeat them, the less credible they are.
Ironic
It’s literally going straight back into the ocean no? No water is actually being lost at all. And if you were to say “well it’s heating up the ocean”, the ocean has quadrillions of liters of water, water is also has extremely high thermal capacity, it takes a lot of heat to even warm up a small amount of water. With these cooling systems the total heat being released is like to throwing a match in a bush fire, it’s literally so miniscule that in a billion years it wouldn’t of made a noticeable dent
the funny thing is it has absolutely nothing to do with the ocean, so i have zero clue how people got that memo. its purely fresh water, as salt water is highly corrosive and would never work.
A lot of it is filtered ocean water too, also when freshwater evaporates most of it it goes back into the ocean
Yes the issue isn’t that it’s draining our oceans it’s that it’s using clean water that farmers need to grow crops in areas where water isn’t readily available. Yes they also use run offs of sewage plants that are clean enough but people who live near data centers still have brown sludge in their kitchen sinks and we should take that seriously too. Just cuz it’s not drinking the ocean dry doesn’t mean it hasn’t been allocated too many resources.
It’s also high not a regional or local issue when it impacts farmers. If cost to grow crops gets more expensive, food will get more expensive. Best case scenario those costs get subsidized to keep them low, farmers get squeezed, and that cost falls back onto the consumer via taxes.
It uses less water than the average industry does, any industry. Since it uses less than it's share of GDP proportionally... why are you not complaining about... paper, or gloves, or ceramic bowls and their water usage, or anything?
Because those aren't the cool hip things to virtue signal about these days.
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Because this isn’t the r/paperglovesandceramics tf? It’s the AI debate sub, I’m gonna debate AI water waste here.
Paper and ceramics are recyclable methods of containment which is better than the alternative of plastics so you win some you lose some. People can also use metals if they want to which have their own draw backs.
We also have the infrastructure set up for those industries to have water already. If the infrastructure was set up for data centers to have their water already and it wasn’t affecting the local populations I wouldn’t have a problem with that either. The problem is it IS affecting local populations. It’s an industry wide interest in fast growth over the health and wellbeing of the populous. Whether you’re anti or pro what is happening to these small towns is immoral. One of the towns most affected is like a two hour drive south of me affecting people like my grandparents. You want growth? Invest in the infrastructure first.
Yes, hence I am asking for a link to where you went to other subreddits and complained about any other random normal industry's water usage.
You never did, because you don't actually give a shit about 0.05% of water being used by an industry that's more than 0.05% of the economy. You are just looking for some excuse to talk down about something you dislike for some other reason and are being dishonest by trying to latch onto water as that (extremely flimsy, nothingburger) excuse.
Not any more than local glove factories
Water policy and infrastructure is the job of the voters in the district, not a corporation. They literally can't dictate that even if they want to.
I care about water being unnecessarily wasted on a bloated nothing of an industry at the expense of real living breathing people. At least I care about it, you’re complacent and even advocating for making it worse so you have no moral high ground to stand on. Paper has a purpose, ceramic has a purpose, gloves have a purpose. Your toy? It’s Google 2.0. Its purpose is to bloat the GDP and act as a set of jingling keys so the population thinks America can actually stand for something other than fat people and greed.
Name me a local glove factory that’s causing people to have brown sludge pooling out of their kitchen sinks, please enlighten me so I can go yell at glove wearers. I’m still gonna yell at you I’ll just yell at the people who buy gloves from that factory too. You’re being dishonest if you think gloves factories are nearly as much of a problem.
It’s the responsibility of the corporation to behave in an ethical way whether the government holds them to that standard or not. Especially in a corrupt country with the highest amount of corporate lobbying in the world, the corporations are doing whatever they want at their own volition. The voters don’t get to vote on policy or if the data centers even get built. They get to vote on the guy they think they trust the most to handle those decisions and those politicians are greedy and willing to fuck their people over for a quick buck. You’re straight up just being a bootlicker acting like if they built a data center in your backyard you’d just be chill about it. Open your eyes or fuck off and get your face nice and seasoned for the leopard.
Real living breathing people are the (only) ones who use AI 🤦
This is like saying dishwashers are 100% wasteful because dishwashers are not sentient beings. This rhetoric is not fooling one single person over the age of 5.
Which is bad, because it's counterproductive to worry about non-issues and try to gum up societal business with nothing-burgers, like the ""issue"" of an important industry using LESS than the average amount of water for an industry.
So.... in other words an incredibly valuable purpose. Yes. Google 1.0 did thousands of times more good for humans than fashionable gloves do.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2023/05/08/elg-suit-industrial-water-pollution/
Half of all US waterways don't meet legal quality minimums, lol. Pretty much every single factory that makes anything is causing things WORSE than this. (In this case, it's not even pollution, there's sediment due to low water pressure causing sediment to settle out. Also the story you're referring to was about a data center under construction that wasn't even operational yet, so that wasn't even the AI industry, that was the construction industry)
Nice strawman. Every water use issue is a local or regional issue.
The biggest misconception is that it only uses water for queries rather than training. Plus the extra power generation needed.
It's a fact that the exploding AI Industry is causing water and energy prices to increase. Supposedly it's all be worth it when AI is smart enough to take all our jobs.
I've never heard a single person claim that. Who is misconceived on this?
Obviously it's the training. The actual generating happens on my own computer at home in 10 seconds and uses 0 milliliters of water, lol
Using 0.1% more water, oh no! My $35 water bill might be $35.04 now (actually less than that because elasticity)! Good god! Take to twitter!
ChatGPT was released years ago and unemployment is still within 1% of where it was. Also made up fearmongering silliness
Sam Altman himself has claimed AI queries use almost no water. Obviously misleading people by omitting the training.
Data centers impact on electric costs are widely reported.. And it's nowhere near a sustainable path.
MIT already estimates AI can replace 11% of all jobs. And the whole point of the current race is to be first with AGI which can replace nearly all jobs.
It DOES use almost no water. Including the training. It uses less water than a typical industry does, since it's total water usage is less than it's portion of GDP
"Widely reporting" something doesn't make it a big issue. Actually being able to provide any facts or metrics about why you think it's a big issue that make any sense would make it a big issue. But it isn't, so you can't.
Cool, wake me up if/when that in any way even slightly begins to reflect reality. I can "predict" youre going to turn into a newt by 2030, if I want. Not news, hasn't happened. AT ALL
They aren't anywhere close to AGI, current AI is a total dead end for meaningful forward progress beyond just scaling up and brute forcing slightly better answers.
Worth it ( for the owning class)
They get their info from the internet and we know its all about farming engagement and fear mongering.
While their information is incorrect. Giant data centers are a huge negative for the environment, especially their surrounding areas.
There really isn't a economically feasible place to put them other than deserts right now.