Current computer technology turns electricity into mostly heat (and a tiny amount of math).
Data centers need lots of electricity, and lots of cooling.
Depending on how you solve the electricity and cooling problems you have different impacts.
Iceland geothermal for electric and cool air exchange is pretty minimal.
Phoenix natural gas jet engines and evaporative cooling, more impact.
Water is typically used in these large systems ina evaporative cooling system. Fresh clean water is literally evaporated into the air to remove heat. This isn’t great, fresh water is limited. It does go into the air so in theory it will return to the local water basin eventually.
Fun fact nuclear power plants have the same waste heat problem, which is why you often see them built next to huge water sources
And soon nuclear power plants will also be built right next to datacenters. All the big players are heavily invested in SMR reactors and there are like a half dozen under construction just to power datacenters right now.
Current computer technology turns electricity into mostly heat (and a tiny amount of math).
Data centers need lots of electricity, and lots of cooling.
Depending on how you solve the electricity and cooling problems you have different impacts.
Iceland geothermal for electric and cool air exchange is pretty minimal.
Phoenix natural gas jet engines and evaporative cooling, more impact.
Water is typically used in these large systems ina evaporative cooling system. Fresh clean water is literally evaporated into the air to remove heat. This isn’t great, fresh water is limited. It does go into the air so in theory it will return to the local water basin eventually.
Fun fact nuclear power plants have the same waste heat problem, which is why you often see them built next to huge water sources
And soon nuclear power plants will also be built right next to datacenters. All the big players are heavily invested in SMR reactors and there are like a half dozen under construction just to power datacenters right now.