Data centers' electrical needs create increased water demands beyond cooling

Since 2022, two-thirds of data centers have been built in water-stressed areas

In residential evaporative cooling systems, 10% of consumed water is lost to evaporation compared to 80% in data centers. Although some companies have pledged to become water-positive—replenishing more freshwater than they consume—by 2030 through a transition to air cooling, only 10% of data center operators track water use across all their facilities.

Data centers require interconnected server- and building-level cooling systems

Computer equipment can be cooled by circulating cold air or water through the equipment racks, siphoning the heated fluid into a heat exchanger. This exchanger transfers thermal energy to building cooling systems, which can dispose of the heat by evaporative cooling—the way humans cool off by sweating—or via air conditioning.

Underwater data centers may provide an alternative to energy-intensive air cooling

By submerging electronic hardware into a non-conductive fluid, such as an oil with strong thermal transfer properties, significant thermal energy can be quickly drawn away from a chip and brought to the surface as warm materials rise. Thermal energy can then be removed from the fluid with a heat exchanger before it is recirculated.

Most data centers rely on the local power grid to feed power-hungry computer equipment

These facilities house rows of vertical racks containing multiple types of hardware, including servers that provide 24/7 access to online applications, services, and data. In a hyperscale center with thousands of these racks, the annual electricity used is estimated to equal that of 400,000 electric vehicles.

Fracking rates may increase with the construction of new data centers

In Pennsylvania, plans to build at least five new facilities supported by gas-fired power plants are expected to escalate public health risks through surges in air and water pollution. Data center water demands are expected to further strain local resources.

Data center power demands have delayed the retirement of coal plants

US data center power consumption is expected to triple by 2035 to meet the growing infrastructure needs of AI platforms. Longer construction times and higher startup costs for renewable energy systems such as wind and solar have led to at least 15 coal power plant closures being postponed.

Most of the critical mineral supply needed for US data centers is imported

The country with the most data centers relies on other nations for about 80% of the rare earth elements needed for magnetic materials in storage drives, 64% of the silver and 85% of the platinum it uses for electrical circuitry, and about half the aluminum and copper used in heat sinks that dissipate thermal energy from electronic components.

Research suggests AI data centers may be creating microclimate heat islands

An analysis of satellite data from 2004 to 2024 showed that land surface temperatures in the areas surrounding AI data centers typically increase by an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) after they begin running. Across the 6,000 global data centers analyzed by the study, temperatures increased by as much as 9.1 degrees Celsius (16.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Water acts as a coolant and a moderator of nuclear reactions in reactors

Nuclear reactions within a containment structure boil water into steam, which drives a turbine that generates electricity. This water is then recirculated via pumps back into the containment structure to repeat the process, with reaction rates lowered by the insertion of control rods that absorb neutrons, which trigger reactions.

Data center companies are worsening housing undersupply in some regional markets

With large capital to spend, technology giants have disrupted the real estate market, driving up prices by outbidding commercial and residential developers and intensifying competition for available land. A property purchased over several years for $50M in Prince William County, Virginia, was sold to Amazon for $700M in 2025.

Some geothermal power plants make electricity using a secondary fluid

Direct dry-steam systems pull underground steam into a turbine-generator system, while flash and double-flash cycle systems spray extracted liquid water into a low-pressure tank, causing it to rapidly vaporize—"flash"—before moving to the turbine. Binary cycle systems use the extracted steam and water to flash a second fluid that easily boils, which then drives the turbine.

Integrated circuits are made with light and require significant purified water and chemicals

The nonstop operation of fabrication plants, which takes months to manufacture a wafer of hundreds of integrated circuits, strains local resources and generates significant chemical waste. Much of the electricity consumed is used to maintain clean room conditions within plants.

Clean energy technologies are more mineral-intensive than burning fossil fuels

Solar panels use silver due to its high conductivity, hydropower plants use chromium in their steel alloys, and geothermal plants need titanium to withstand abundant heat and pressure. Lithium—used in energy storage—is expected to see over 500% increased demand from 2020 to 2025.

A dashboard showing real-time electricity usage in the US

The United States demands for electricity are enormous, with hundreds of thousands of megawatt hours required to run households and businesses every hour. You can track the fluctuations of US electric use with this dashboard.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Desalination involves costly, energy-intensive methods for producing freshwater

Thermal desalination heats saltwater to produce steam, and reverse osmosis forces saltwater through a membrane that only allows water through. In both cases, freshwater is collected and remineralized for consumption, while wastewater brine is often returned to the ocean, where it may harm marine organisms.

DNA computing allows for storage and processing of massive amounts of data

Although costly and less efficient for simpler tasks, as of 2025, DNA could hold 455 exabytes of data with near limitless parallel computation potential in small data centers. Every movie ever made would fit inside the volume of a single sugar cube.

Explore the water footprint of producing various proteins, fruits, and vegetables

This interactive gallery highlights the various types of water behind the production of biofuels, foods, and materials such as cotton. Diets high in bovine meat, whose production requires 15,415 liters of water per kilogram (1,847 gallons per pound), are among the most water-intensive, whereas every kilogram of vegetables uses 322 liters of water (39 gal/lb) to produce.

Technologies developed for the ISS have brought benefits to people on Earth

About 93% of water used onboard the International Space Station is recycled through filtration and purification systems that have since been used in regions lacking access to clean water. Treatments to mitigate bone loss and muscle atrophy in astronauts can also help aging adults.

A database tracking water conflicts for thousands of years

This open-source database has logged more than 4,000 conflicts around water across 100 countries, cataloging water as a casualty, trigger, or weapon of the conflict.

Why water towers are built that way

There's a bitcoin mine in remote Zambia

In Zambia, a small hydropower plant draws water to power a town of 15,000 people—and a bitcoin mine. A shipping container containing 120 computers mining bitcoin—solving complex calculations to win the reward of several bitcoin—was set up near the plant to use its cheap electricity, and share its revenue.

Local governments are responsible for more than 148,000 public water systems across the US

From large municipal utilities to small rural systems, local governments are tasked with providing clean water to almost every American community. The US operates over 148,000 public water systems.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

IBM developed a benchmark to measure the usable performance of a quantum computer

Dubbed "quantum volume," the benchmark tests how well a quantum computer runs complex tasks. It stops when the computer can no longer correctly select the most likely answers, called "heavy outputs," more than two-thirds of the time.

See the average daily volume of data processed by the internet, from emails to Zoom meetings

During February 2025, over 333 billion messages were sent via email every day, or approximately 231,400,000 per minute. Over 150 million hours were spent daily on Zoom meetings worldwide, but almost 10 times that amount of video content was streamed in the same timeframe.

Breaking down the different types of drinking water, from alkaline to sparkling

While tap water is regulated by the EPA, environmental and infrastructural factors can introduce contaminants, which filtering can help to remove. Distilled water has had all of its mineral contaminants removed and may be used in laboratory settings, but mineral water has them added in for taste or to promote health.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'