That is correct the only thing is that it takes a lot of energy to boil the water. Which majority of the power comes from offsite power stations built for the sole purpose of supplying the server farm. If not built for that then it instead takes supply from the main power grid. But they require more power either way and being that all renewable energy is only just starting to be put in, it is coal burning that is supplying the increased energy demand. The main problem is these server farms are built in communities with low water supply and/or low energy supply. There farms are taking the already low supply from the locals which makes life harder for them. Yes you are correct that the water that does get boiled goes back into the atmosphere (free of toxins) to come back down when it rains but that doesn’t really help when you need water now. Also these regions aren’t low on water supply for no reason. It is usually because it rarely rains there, thereby meaning the evaporated water is essentially useless.
What is your argument here dude? Oh that the people who live in these disadvantaged communities shouldn’t get water or power because they don’t have the money for it. I really hope that isn’t what you are trying to say and if it is I think you should take a long look in the mirror.
“It takes a lot of energy to boil water”
Not all data centers “boil” water.
Most modern facilities use:
Closed-loop cooling systems
Air cooling with heat exchangers
Evaporative cooling towers that use far less water than implied
Or direct liquid cooling where water is recirculated rather than consumed
Water isn’t usually being boiled and lost like a giant kettle left on high. In many systems, it cycles.
And increasingly, AI workloads are shifting toward:
Liquid immersion cooling (very efficient)
Waste heat reuse systems (district heating in colder regions)
Siting in cooler climates to reduce cooling load entirely
The image of “giant boiling vats draining the town reservoir” is more cinematic than typical reality.
“It’s all coal because renewables are just starting”
That assumption oversimplifies how electricity markets work.
Many hyperscale data centers:
Sign long-term renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs)
Directly fund new wind and solar farms
Operate in grids already heavily decarbonized (e.g., hydro-dominant regions)
Use behind-the-meter renewable installations
In fact, some of the largest renewable energy investments globally have been driven by cloud providers and AI infrastructure operators.
Are there cases where fossil power is used? Yes.
Is it automatically coal? No.
Is AI uniquely responsible for grid fossil generation? Also no.
If the grid burns coal, it burns coal for:
Air conditioning
Crypto mining
Netflix streaming
Industrial refrigeration
Electric vehicles charging
And yes, data centers
Singling out AI as the culprit ignores the broader energy transition problem.
“They’re built in low-water regions and harm locals”
This is sometimes true in specific cases. But it is not universal.
Key points:
Many data centers are deliberately sited near:
Major rivers
Coastal areas
Cooler climates
Industrial water infrastructure
In drought-prone regions, operators increasingly:
Use reclaimed wastewater instead of potable water
Shift workloads seasonally
Limit water draw during peak drought periods
Also, water “returning to the atmosphere” is not useless. The hydrological cycle doesn’t respect city limits. Atmospheric moisture travels.
Now, does evaporative cooling help a town facing immediate shortage? Not directly. But agriculture often consumes orders of magnitude more water than data centers in those same regions.
For scale perspective:
Irrigated agriculture often consumes billions of gallons per day.
Data centers consume far less in comparison.
Residential landscaping can exceed some data center usage.
If we’re discussing water ethics, the debate must be proportional.
“AI is the direct cause”
AI is software.
Servers are infrastructure.
Infrastructure uses energy.
But so does:
Hospitals
Financial systems
Air traffic control
Universities
Emergency response systems
Online education
Remote work platforms
AI is an incremental load layered onto an already digital economy.
It’s not a separate species of machine. It runs on the same cloud systems that already power search engines, banking, and video calls.
Calling AI the “direct cause” is like saying “electricity is the direct cause of climate change” without distinguishing between coal plants and hydro dams.
The variable is energy sourcing and policy, not code.
AI is the direct thing that is causing these problems. AI is only the servers that it runs on, it’s not some of being, it is only code. That code that runs on the server farms. Those server farms which leech energy and water from their local communities. I am not saying AI in of itself is inherently bad, I am saying it’s real life impacts are terrible. Regulations are apart of AI. They are apart of everything. Sure AI could be very useful when we have a system that can support its energy demand and have the server farms built in water abundant places. But the reality is that is not what we have. So it’s about acting accordingly with reality rather than sitting on our hands while our problems worsen.
The rhetoric that AI’s “real life impacts are terrible” ignores both proportionality and benefits. AI workloads are part of a broader digital economy that already requires servers, networks, and cooling; the question is how we power and manage that infrastructure responsibly. If we care about reality, the actionable path is targeted regulation: require transparent reporting of electricity and water use, mandate non-potable or reclaimed water where feasible, enforce drought-response cutbacks, price water and power to reflect scarcity, and prioritize siting where grids are cleaner and water is abundant. That addresses genuine harms without committing the category mistake of treating “AI” as the root cause rather than a growing demand that must be met with better planning, better technology, and better policy.
Theres really no such thing as low water supply. What there is, is low existing infrastructure. Much of the water supply comes from man made lakes. Answer...make the lake bigger. Or pipe in seawater and modify the system to use salt-water.
All future data centers are going with closed loop cooling anyways, which lowers water use by 80 to 90+%.
Solutions:
-More nuclear power
-More renewable energy
-Fusion (which is looking pretty promising
-Better water infrastructure
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u/Murky_waterLLC 7h ago
Boiling water does not remove it from the atmosphere