An illustration of a floating data center being developed by Nautilus Data Technologies. (Image: Nautilus Data)
The data centers of major technology companies require large quantities of water for cooling, due to the significant heat they generate and the energy they use to operate. The need for water has grown steadily as the Internet has developed and the size of these centers has increased, also increasing the pressure on already strained water distribution networks.
The average data center consumes around one million liters of water a day to cool itself, according to Virginia Tech researchers, equivalent to the consumption of 100,000 homes. One in five data centers draws water from watersheds that are already under stress, particularly in the USA, where a large number of data centers are located and where a cyclical drought has been raging for several years.
Cyrus One’s Vice President of Environmental Health, Safety and Sustainability, Kyle Myers, who owns and operates over forty data centers in North America, says the risk is real for anyone dependent on water resources.
Over the next few years, data centers will continue to expand due to colocation centers, new companies in the sector and the development of the metaverse, increasing the pressure on water reserves at a time when these are already dwindling due to drought. In the USA, more than half the country is already in a drought situation, and tech giants have begun to take steps to limit their water consumption.
Cyrus One, for example, decided to use a different, closed-loop cooling method when it was set up in Phoenix, Arizona, a region already affected by drought. Thanks to this environmentally friendly but more costly system, water consumption no longer varies, and Kyle Myers points out that this zero water consumption avoids the risk of dwindling water resources.
– Facebook
At its Los Lunas data center in New Mexico, Méta has decided to reduce relative humidity from 20% to 13%, a pilot program that will also reduce water consumption. For the time being, however, Meta’s overall water consumption continues to rise, with a fifth of this coming from water-stressed areas. The company has set itself the year 2030 to achieve the goal of restoring more water than it consumes.
Redistributing more water than it uses is also a goal for Microsoft, which has set itself the target of both reducing the intensity of water consumption and replenishing the water-stressed regions from which Microsoft draws water. Microsoft President Brad Smith explains that the company has been investing in continuous innovation in this area for years, with the aim of being able to recycle almost all the water used in data centers. In places where rainfall is regular, such as the Seattle headquarters on the Pacific coast, rainwater is collected from the roof, while in areas where it doesn’t rain, such as Arizona, Microsoft is developing condensation techniques.
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