There is a lot of nonsense talked about this sort of subject:
Data centres use vast amounts of water for cooling. It can be used to absorb heat through methods like evaporation or immersion. The water needed can be significant depending on the system and heat generated.
It is estimated that up to 5 million gallons (approximately 20 million litres) of water is used daily in data centre cooling. By using water in such quantities, data centres are contributing to water shortages and depletion of resources, particularly in countries where water scarcity and drought are prevalent.
Very very few data centres are built in areas of water scarcity and drought. So conflating use of cooling water in, for example, The Netherlands, with water scarcity in African countries, is utter nonsense. Extremely poor logic, and has no relationship with science.
https://nltimes.nl/2024/05/14/rapid-climate-change-netherlands-needs-prepare-heat-drought-floodingThere are 64 datacentres in Amsterdam.
https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-library/home/about-us/regulation/drought-plan/drought-plan-2022/thames-water-draft-drought-plan-2022.pdfThere's 170+ in the London area.
We think of water stressed areas like sub Saharan Africa... but the reality is, much of Europe is sleep walking into water scarcity. I remember growing up in east Anglia of all places that we had hosepipe bans every year, and had to practice water saving measures.
But then there's also the US, which is a water scarcity time bomb waiting to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNtraY6HhQThere are 56 datacentres in Phoenix, Arizona.
28 in Austin, Texas.
The connection (and there is one) is that data centres use a lot of energy. Energy that, if not produced from renewables, is contributing to climate change.
Hence interest in building data centres in places like Iceland, with its surplus of geothermal energy, or Scotland, with its surplus of wind energy.
Iceland and Scotland are a very small proportion of new DCs.
Ireland. London. Phoenix. Austin. are all far more popular.
Another major issue isn't just the water used to run the DC's but the resources going into making the chips. The vast majority are made on Taiwan. An island with minimal local water supply. A place where there's minimal renewable energy resources.
It's a grotesque level of consumption for what is in essence, sparkling autocarrot.
It's not intelligent, it can't actually make decisions. And it's leading directly to the enshitification of the internet.
Please avoid LLM's.
J