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Passages

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2. How many politicians are calling for a moratorium on data centers?

Mon Jun 8, 2026, 09:49 AM

19 hrs ago

But a stampede of new datacenters are adding extra demands via their hefty energy and water requirements. Large datacenters, some the size of small towns, can require up to 5m gallons of water a day, equivalent to the water use of up to 50,000 people, in order to provide cooling to arrays of humming networked computers.

Overall, the multiplying datacenters across the US are set to demand as much as 73bn gallons of water a year by 2028, up from about 17bn gallons in 2023. Each 100-word AI prompt uses up roughly one 500ml bottle of water due to the cooling needs of datacenters, researchers have estimated.

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Majority of US's new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land [View all] marmar 19 hrs ago OP

The land is cheap, it's often very poor rural areas mwmisses4289 19 hrs ago #1

This message was self-deleted by its author jeffreyi 17 hrs ago #7

How many politicians are calling for a moratorium on data centers? Passages 19 hrs ago #2

Aren't they mostly red areas? dem4decades 19 hrs ago #3

Kick dalton99a 18 hrs ago #4

So this raises the question of where they plan on getting the water, if not locally. harumph 18 hrs ago #5

I posted a thread two years ago about AI companies preferring dry climates to avoid corrosion, highplainsdem 18 hrs ago #6

Why can't they recycle the water? Wifes husband 14 hrs ago #8

$$$ Angleae 12 hrs ago #9

I am sure I am wrong but Wifes husband 9 hrs ago #10