As artificial intelligence expands worldwide, researchers warn that the data centers powering AI could place increasing pressure on water supplies, energy grids, and communities already facing drought.
Yes, AI is great, it gives us answers to everything, makes our work easier and makes people look smarter. That romance that contemporary society is also a collective suicide of humanity. Intellectual laziness is already leaving millions of students in a void in the teaching/learning process.
If we increase the employment impact to this, where every day, thousands of people lose their jobs, we can expect a devastating impact.
And well, now a new element has been revealed that will show that humanity is the only being on this earth that inflicts its own weapons for its destruction.
There is a fight that is only discussed in passing in the media and political circles. The installation of Data Centers around the world will cause a tremendous drought that will threaten any form of existence. To give an example.
By 2030, water consumption linked to the use of artificial intelligence will be equivalent to that of 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, while it will require nearly three times the annual energy consumption of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria — countries with a combined population of 650 million. In terms of carbon emissions, these could reach 400 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, comparable to the United Kingdom’s total emissions. The operation of AI will require 14,500 square kilometers of land, including infrastructure and supply chains — twice the size of the Jakarta metropolitan area, a megacity with more than 32 million inhabitants, or 10 times that of Mexico City (21 million).
These are some of the figures cited by the authors of a report published this Wednesday by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). In addition to these projections, based on conservative growth estimates, the report also contains striking data about the current situation: if the data centers powering AI were a country, their present electricity consumption (448 terawatt-hours, TWh) would be on par with that of France.
AI in the United States
Data centers are having an increasingly significant impact on water use in the United States of America, primarily for one key reason: they require enormous amounts of water to cool their servers.
Why do data centers consume water?
Servers generate a lot of heat. To prevent overheating, many data centers use cooling systems that include:
Evaporative cooling towers (the most common method)
Industrial air conditioning systems
In some cases, direct liquid cooling
The problem is that evaporative cooling works by “evaporating” water, meaning the water is consumed and not always recovered.
How does this affect water in the United States?
In several regions of the US, especially areas with drought or water stress such as:
Arizona
Texas
California
western parts of the country
Data centers compete directly with other uses of water (human consumption, agriculture, industry).
Although many companies report “water efficiency”, the growth of cloud, AI and streaming means that total consumption continues to increase.
