Datacenters face rising thirst as Europe dries up
- Reference: 1756284315
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/27/datacenter_water_challenge/
- Source link:
While much attention has focused on the soaring energy consumption of bit barns due to factors such as higher-density infrastructure used for AI training, the availability of water for cooling is now what's worrying operators, according to data analytics and consulting biz [1]GlobalData .
Google games numbers to make AI look less thirsty [2]READ MORE
Climate change has disrupted normal weather patterns, making wildfires and flash floods more common, while the parched and baked ground can result in less rainwater getting absorbed into aquifers.
"Climate change also means that the requirement for water to cool the ever-expanding base of datacenters is likely to become an issue that needs addressing," commented Robert Pritchard, GlobalData Principal Analyst, Enterprise Technology & Services.
Despite efforts by industry to find alternatives to water for cooling and attempts to reduce overall use, Pritchard claims that H 2 O continues to play a huge role. He cites figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that estimate AI tools will require 4.2-6.6 billion cubic meters of water per year by 2027. "More than the entire annual use for a country like Denmark, or nearly half of that of the UK," he says.
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The Register has [4]reported previously on the difficulties that datacenter operators face in cutting water use in the face of rising demand for hot 'n' hungry AI servers.
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Research published last month from consultants Maplecroft indicated that [7]many of the world's top datacenter locations are at risk from rising global temperatures, with growing cooling requirements pushing up costs and water consumption, while shutdowns to prevent overheating during heatwaves may become more frequent.
It estimated that an average mid-sized facility uses about 300,000 gallons (1.4 million liters) of water a day, and said this requirement is likely to increase as temperatures rise.
[8]Google games numbers to make AI look less thirsty
[9]NIMBYs threaten to sink Project Sail, a $17B datacenter development in Georgia
[10]You've got drought: UK gov suggests you save water by deleting old emails
[11]Google agrees to pause AI workloads to protect the grid when power demand spikes
However, the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade association [12]warned earlier this summer that burdensome regulatory demands from the European Commission aimed at curtailing use of the precious liquid could see operators choose to build their massive bit barns elsewhere instead.
CISPE put forward its own recommendations for how to deliver the EU's Water Resilience Strategy, claiming that it strongly supports the European Commission's commitments on saving water resources.
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Meanwhile, cloudy giant Google recently emitted its own missive, claiming that the use of H 2 O by AI infrastructure has been grossly overstated, although this has been [14]met with skepticism and criticism for its test methodology.
GlobalData points out that wherever there is a major challenge, the technology industry usually finds solutions. But in this case, the problem of water scarcity is a political issue and a social issue, not just a technology concern.
"There is no water equivalent of carbon credits to hide behind," Pritchard said, labeling such schemes among big energy consumers as "obfuscation tactics that have often saved blushes amongst greenwashers."
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More importantly, where energy can have on-site backup generators for grid failures, there is no equivalent for water, he warned. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.globaldata.com/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/googles_gemini_water/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/cloudinfrastructuremonth&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aK7XONEybkErEIMKXX4zbwAAAQI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/04/how_datacenters_use_water/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/cloudinfrastructuremonth&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aK7XONEybkErEIMKXX4zbwAAAQI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/cloudinfrastructuremonth&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aK7XONEybkErEIMKXX4zbwAAAQI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/11/climate_change_datacenters/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/googles_gemini_water/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/georgia_datacenter_pushback/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/uk_government_delete_emails_water/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/04/google_ai_datacenter_grid/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/30/cispe_eu_water_resilience/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/cloudinfrastructuremonth&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aK7XONEybkErEIMKXX4zbwAAAQI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/22/googles_gemini_water/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/cloudinfrastructuremonth&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aK7XONEybkErEIMKXX4zbwAAAQI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
A simple fix would be to build them by the sea, which has extra costs for longer links, but that isn't a big hairy deal.
The most significant business centre that's a long way from the see is probably Frankfurt, and even that's "only" 350km as the crow flies. An extra 7.4ms of latency might be significant for a tiny number of financial services gamblers doing HFT, for the other 99% of DC loads it'd make zero difference. And that's just about the worst case in Europe. Berlin's of the order of 140km from the coast, Amsterdam about 10km, Paris 110km, Lyon about 180km, Milan 100km, Munich 200km, Madrid 220km, etc etc.
That would mean the data centre providers would have to pay the costs for building the infrastructure that they need to offer their services, and it's obvious they don't want do that. They would rather take water from everyone else.
Resources
This is where the huge scale of these facilities simply has to take all factors into account.
You cannot build something on the assumption that power and water is magically available and bluntly if you using water to cool and it is in short supply just throwing money to pay a higher price is not the solution.
The reality is that the huge expansions of these data centres and the increasing demands on resource are not sustainable. Unfortunately what actually happens is these very well funded corporations just pay to make the problem go away. That impacts all of us as water is required for some much more than keeping servers and storage cool whilst it runs worthless AI, Social Media or storage of cat photos.
Re: Resources
"That impacts all of us as water is required for some much more than keeping servers and storage cool whilst it runs worthless AI, Social Media or storage of cat photos."
What about "adult content"? Surely that is the finest achievement of the internet. If a few farmers have to swap from maize to olive groves so I can indulge my baser instincts then that's fine by me, I like olives.
Social problem
What i see here is a market challenge.
We have a scarce resource that has three use cases:
1, Where we use it to drink and keep ourselves clean
2, Where we use it for irrigation so we can feed ourselves
3, Where we can use it for industrial uses, hosting cat videos and other things
I suspect that we have an inverse incentive.
That the users in use case 1 should only be charged the lowest possible rate - its low on the hierarchy of needs after all.
That the users in use case 2 are also in need of lower rates to avoid inflating the price of 2, which is also low on the hierarchy of needs.
The users in use case 3 are by default the highest in the hierarchy of needs and consequently should pay the most. However, they also use vast quantities and therefore demand low prices or subsidies to 'bring jobs to the area'.
These lower prices or subsidies are paid for either by 1 or 2, either in their water prices or in terms of higher taxation to pay for 3.
So we end up in a perverse situation where the least valuable use case gets a preferential rate vs those of the higher value.
One option is to have a 'left over' model. We calculate the amount of water that's required according to the hierarchy of needs at each level and then what's left is passed up to the next level. If there's none left for cat videos, that's decision made. Of course the cat video folks can go talk to the water management companies and ask for more water to be created somehow, but this should have no impact on the current application of other use cases.
Yes, we'd need to have some sort of hierarchy of importance of cat videos vs farming, but that might be a useful exercise in public education. Most people are concerned with current, small, but noisy problems, rather than realising how lucky they are and how good things are.
regulatory demands from the European Commission aimed at curtailing use of the precious liquid could see operators choose to build their massive bit barns elsewhere instead
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Close the door on your way out.
Nothing of value was lost.
Etc... etc...