Ani's Character Profile in Grok

  A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day

I naively assumed these were closed loops. Where does the water go? I would think it just gets warm and does not evaporate.

exmadscientist•39m ago

Option A is to build a closed-loop system, that runs a million gallons of water per day through chillers and recirculates it. You need to find chillers that can handle that load continuously and enough power to run them.

Option B is an open-loop system where you run a million gallons of water through exchangers, heat it up, then dump the hot water and find a way to get a new million gallons of water from the local municipality.

Option B is cheaper, so they do that. Higher water prices would change that equation, but that's not what we have now, and it's hard to pitch an Option A project if anyone else is willing to offer rates that make Option B work. The Prisoner's Dilemma strikes again.

tomatotomato37•17m ago

I find it hard to believe continuous consumption of potable municipal water is cheaper than running chillers or exchangers cooled by a river/ocean, especially considering powerplants and the like have been doing the latter for decades

pxeger1•8m ago

[delayed]

Saris•16m ago

Why isn't the focus on the local government who is allocating that much water without caring about the effects?

Yes AI is wasteful, but if they couldn't get water they wouldn't build there.

srean•9m ago

Because governments and elections can be influenced.