Google's data center would have drunk a city's yearly water in a single day
Big Tech's thirst for water is sparking a global resistance
Training the LLM behind the first ChatGPT took an estimated 185,000 gallons of water, and a single hyperscale data center can swallow up to 5 million gallons a day — as much as a city of 10,000 to 50,000 people. In Cerrillos, Chile, Google's planned facility was projected to use 169 liters per second, matching the annual drinking water of all 80,000 residents in one day. Residents fought back, and opposition spread across Latin America.
Data center companies claim they will be respectful and considerate neighbors, but too often hide the extent of the damage from the scale of their demands on local resources.
- jandrewrogers
> "The majority [of water] is used for big agro industries, such as soya, rice, and wood pulping. Now we have Google planning to use enormous quantities of water.”
This is like calling a rubber raft "enormous" after comparing it to an aircraft carrier. Agriculture consumes astronomically more water, often wastefully, for far less valuable purposes. I can't take these objections seriously.
This is just the latest weird moral panic.
- erelong
Sometimes I wonder how many resources things like AI actually save rather than consume (I don't see that reported on as much)
- driverdan
Anyone angry about DC water use should be much more angry about golf courses. They use far more water and often overuse pesticides that can run off and leach into ground water.
- woah
Is this guy reviewing his own book?
- profdevloper
> Tapping into public drinking water is both easier and cheaper than paying the cost of treatment themselves. That means data centers end up competing with communities over their potable water supply.
My city has tiered pricing for water consumption based on gallons consumed per-household. Instead of the vague pearl clutching here, why can't municipalities provide preferred pricing to residential customers and have the data center consumers subsidize ongoing water treatment and infrastructure build out to support the extra capacity. Seems like a win-win.