In this editorial, Magnus Bach, VP of Business Development at Atoco, discusses how the company’s atmospheric water harvesting technology can help data centers secure sustainable water sources amid AI’s soaring cooling demands.
Atoco featured in Water Online
The Data Center Water Challenge: How Atmospheric Water Harvesting Can Secure AI’s Thirsty Future
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in a phase of exponential growth. Much of this growth will be powered by machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics. These applications require hyperscale and colocation data centers to support their massive computational loads. Yet behind this growth lies a critical and often overlooked consequence: a rapidly rising demand for water.
Data Centers Are Booming, But Where Does The Water Come From?
Data centers are not only energy-intensive but also water-intensive. To keep servers cool and maintain uninterrupted operation, vast amounts of water are consumed in cooling systems every day. As computational loads increase with the growth of AI, this hidden water footprint is expanding rapidly, placing additional strain on local supplies that are often already under pressure.
Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the Western and Southwestern United States. These regions are magnets for data center growth because of their robust infrastructure and proximity to metropolitan and tech hubs. Yet, they are also among the most drought-prone areas in the country.
Despite hosting only about 20% of U.S. servers, the Western and Southwestern U.S. accounts for roughly 70% of the data-center industry’s water-scarcity footprint. The imbalance is striking. The same regions that are critical to powering AI’s future are simultaneously the ones least able to sustain its water demands.
The scale of the challenge is dramatic. U.S. data centers consumed 21.2 billion liters of water in 2013. By 2023, that figure had tripled to 66 billion liters. Today, hyperscale and colocation facilities, already responsible for 84% of this consumption, are set to expand further as AI adoption deepens.
Traditional strategies such as improving Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) are valuable, but they are not enough. What matters most is reducing reliance on scarce local water resources. Without a paradigm shift, the digital economy risks colliding with the harsh realities of climate change and water scarcity.
What If We Could Efficiently Pull Water Out Of The Air?
A new generation of atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) solutions is prone to play a significant role in making next-gen data centers more sustainable and make them independent from scarce water sources.
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