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.
Data? Not as essential.
However, for those of us who pay attention, we know there is an extreme amount of wastefulness when it comes to how water gets used for agriculture, that is completely unnecessary. (Think growing alfalfa in Arizona, or spray irrigation in hot climates, or or or - the examples are sadly endless.
Hopefully this becomes a good opportunity for us to better pay attention and regulate how water is used in many different instances.
10% of California's electricity goes to pumping water around. Or that was the figure not too long ago. And it's being pumped all over, not just to ag.
The reality is, the most wasteful users of water are residential, where a lot is used to ornamental things like lawns.
There's a lot to worry about with AI, but data centers? Now? No one cared when they were being built out for AWS to host 7 gazillion Wordpress pages.
Well, once there are enough of these objections, you are forced to take them seriously whether you "can" or not, because they have the power to stop the party into which so much capital and valuations are tied up.
Or to put it another way, I can't take vaccine objectors seriously, but now there are enough of them that I don't have any choice. For better or worse, that's how democracy works.
That being said, water isn't like electricity, land, or a given year's tax revenues. It exists in a cycle and can be reused. It can be piped in from a potable water source, and you could probably develop a cooling loop that would return it back to the civic supply in potable form.
Other than somebody not wanting to because "b-b-b-b-but what about the shareholders!?", why not build that loop, put its components into mass production, and let economies of scale start cutting the cost while having less impact upon local water districts?
Makes sense.
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.
Then go to carbon-based computing to waste less heat.
woah•47m ago