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its funny how these AI centers are mostly if not all in red states only, simply because they know the legislation wont do anything, and encourage them anyways, plus the resident that leans right are less likely to make a big fuss over it.
Yes, Texas did vote for that. Haha, Red states suffering is funny.
Whether or not they did we all exist under the same atmosphere.
Texan here: we barely get to vote on shit at all. And they're gerrymandering to make it even harder.
I'd call Texas a clown car but it's too big to qualify.
The estimate of the majority Democrats would need to retake the Senate is something like 70/30, based on the degree of gerrymandering.
And the math just gets worse every time maps are redrawn.
How strong is Fair Maps Texas? Assuming it's sincere in its effort to redistrict Texas fairly, Maybe they need more ~~brickthrowers~~ ~~saboteurs~~ sign wavers and clerical volunteers.
During the 1986-1992 California drought, we were informed in the San Francisco Bay Area region that water service prices were going to go up unless we conserved strictly.
They said this to a bunch of California hippies, on account that we were in California.
So we way got on board. We stopped flushing. Any water that was rendered non-potable we'd repurpose for watering plants or filter it for second use. Japanese naval baths (weird tiny bowl seats and a sponge, used in the Imperial Navy, WWII) got popular so people were keeping clean via a tenth of normal water usage.
We conserved too much according to the water department and they raised prices anyway.
This sparked some investigations (by journalists, since investigative journalism was still a thing then) and found that agriculture got water for much cheaper, and was still using it once before flushing it (now laced with pesticides) out into the sea. Needless to say, we conservationist hippies were livid.
It's still a problem, as the utility companies routinely lobby our congress and governor (and Newsom may know how to be a California liberal, but he's still a Dianne-Feinstein-style ( / Nancy-Pelosi style) money-grubbing neoliberal. He just has game, especially when opposed to far right idiots. The setup in Monster's Inc (power crisis in a city where scream is the principal power source) was inspired by the Enron fraud affair leading to rolling blackouts and Texas siphoning off California's general fund. And our governments from Schwarzenegger (who I will never forgive) to Newsom are in the pocket of PG&E. (I'm on SMUD now and my bill is conspicuously less.)
Also, according to Climate Town, the Sauds own a lot of California farmland, where they grow alfalfa to import to the mid-east to feed their cows. Alfalfa crops are one of the most water hungry, and is one of the big ways beef is driving the climate crisis (and towards a massive food shortage and global famine!) and the water tables, to which they have access and first-tap rights, gets lower every year. 🕙
So I suspect that the Texas AI centers are getting water at a cheaper rate than private homes. Maybe it's something to get active about.
I hate how datacenters get blamed for issues that are clearly caused more by shitty outdoor farms than cooling towers
would you like to read about the xAI data center that is poisoning anyone unfortunate enough to live near it https://time.com/7021709/elon-musk-xai-grok-memphis/
So the people should build a giant warehouse that uses a bazillion gallons of water that feeds into the warehouse and in the same pipe back to the water system, get wholesale rates and charge consumers the cheaper rate!
Same pipe, just make sure it goes into the warehouse so you can charge people for what leaves.
You want to trust the water a data center with zero regulations is regurgitating?
No, I want the people to buy a warehouse, have the utility run pipe into the building and back out to the water supply, have the warehouse pay wholesale rates and resell it to the people at wholesale after its half second journey through the detour pipe in the warehouse.
Here's the report this came from https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2025-07-25/texas-is-still-in-drought-and-ai-data-centers-are-quietly-guzzling-up-water/
Can't wait for the water wars to start. :-/
Why the fuck do they alway pick the driest places to use the most water. Fucking morons
Industrial cooling is all about evaporating some liquid into gas. For evaporative coolers, that liquid is water and works best if the air is dry and water is plentiful (the absurd part). If you don't have water or the air is so humid that evaporation is difficult, the liquid is expensive refrigerant which must recycle back into liquid in a closed loop with a gas compressor that pumps the waste heat into the air through forced convection heat exchangers (big fans blowing air past hot refrigerant-filled pipes), all of which consumes a lot of energy.
Ideally, we'd live in a post scarcity society in which huge arrays of solar panels would provide electricity to run closed-loop refrigerant plants that would consume zero water to cool our data centers.
There's only one obvious answer to that question in a capitalism world. Because it's cheaper than other places. Why is it cheaper for the corporations in the driest places where common people need to stop using showers is also obvious.
Less regulations also
I always rant about tech moving to Austin.
They need low heat, reliable power, cheap / fast internet, and an abundance of water.
Texas is literally none of those things.
We have low regulations though. Which is why they do it.
Because that usually means it's hot and sunny so things grow well if you can get water to it.
It's easier to get water places than make it warmer or sunnier in the optimal water place.
Edit: sorry this was me thinking about the alfalfa sprout comment above. Makes zero fucking sense for IT.
Seems like the real problem is that companies aren't being charged enough for their excessive water usage.
It's no surprise this is happening in the Land of Useful Idiots and Dipshits, texas.
less regulation, plus gop/republicans arnt going to protest over something that is pollution/environmental damage, at least not in large numbers.
This but just the Microsoft logo lol
"Since Microsoft dropped its DEI initiatives, it's good actually!"
They deregulated shower heads just in time.
Stoopid Texans. You've got the guns, start using the things. If they need cooling, maybe aerate a few blocks of servers for them.
So not only are Corporations... People
Now they are more important people than regular citizens?
Under capitalism they always were. Just take a close look at exactly who the "Founding Fathers" were.
You should complain whenever million gallons of water are wasted by corporations seeking profits or by governments for their shady operations. Not just when it's about AI.
I'm not joking when i say that not using ai is mostly improving my reasoning. Probably, each time I used it, i had to subconsciously offset some thinking to that brainless machine. I'm fine the way I am, i know it's being propped up as some ultimate solution but my creative output improved too.
We're probably offsetting some thinking and memorisation to a computer with a complete lack of experience of the real world, and it's somehow being presented as acceptable. I do n't think it's fine.
I don't understand why AI data centers would CONSUME water. Once they fill up their chiller loops, then... that's it, right?
It's hard for me to imagine them relying on the temperature of the incoming water, and dumping all the warm water as discharge.
From what I've seen it's "not worth the effort or expense" to reuse the water. Some of them literally just send tap water through the cooling loops and then into the sewer drains
They're probably using cooling towers, which cool through evaporation. They should be using reclaimed though.
As long as it is cheaper to buy water, then evaporate it, big firms will continue to do so.
With a COP of around 15 and up it is difficult to argue with the economy of this.
Local regulation would be required, but that would need politicians who don't suck.
This is the right answer. They use evaporative cooling. Which does save a lot of power so they can claim to be "green".
I worked 10 years at a data center, all that water is recycled - it is very carefully chemically balanced so as to not corrode the pipes and pumps, no they do not use it once and dump it out.
But it does spoil and evaporate doesn't it? So it's still a continuous demand that's not sustainable in that part of the world.
elon is currrently using the aquifer drinking water under memphis to cool grok. he’s also powering it with generators and smogging out the city.
please do not use grok.
The priorities are completly screwd up. If they found a way to power the AI datacenters with humans, Matrix style, would they ask Texans to sacrifice their first borns to do so?
It's always a good idea to put computer centers in areas with water scarcity. /s
Well, it could work. If the local government gave a shit. Which they don't, because Texas. But the water going into a datacenter does come out... The main downside being that it's hotter (which is a limiting factor, you can't run it in a loop without some big cooling system, and rivers/lakes are by far the most effective way way to do that).
The article I saw doesn't say what the problem is exactly. Is the datacenter pumping from an aquifer rather than a lake/river? Are they raising the temperature in ways that affect the environment negatively? Are they abusing the municipal water supply instead of pumping their own water, forcing the taxpayer to essentially subsidize their infrastructure? Lots that could go wrong, but it's all shit that should be fully figured out during the permitting process.