Many new AI data centers will be built on US drought-hit areas raising questions over water and power supply

Date:
Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:05:00 +0000

Description:
Nearly two-thirds of upcoming data centers tracked in a study are being built in areas that have been in drought over the last year.

FULL STORY
The issue is fast becoming political for many Americans, 70% of whom do not want to live next to a data center: The United States might be in the grip of a record-shattering drought, but AI data center builders and their proponents seem unfazed for now.

This is despite local frustrations over the detrimental impact of AI data centers on living conditions, which are becoming increasingly vocal. The unprecedented situation is impacting both power generation and water supply alike, but is finding a somewhat muted response from political stakeholders
in various regions. The AI industry maintains that closed loops are
highly efficient in both cooling and water use, and datacenter operators such as AWS are implementing their own custom loops to capitalize on the
situation, but that might just be the tip of the iceberg here.

The elephant in the room for most data centers is power: all current
buildouts will require reliable power to support the compute they are
expected to house in the near future.

This is particularly challenging at a time when the US grid is already
expected to be strained, even as it passes increased power costs on to consumers over the next few years.

In a report published by Xlyem , estimates indicated that out of the increase in AI-centric demand for water, only 4% is directly attributed to the data center, while a mammoth 96% is indirect (power generation at ~54% and semiconductor fabrication at ~42%), with much of the focus on the former
versus the latter.

At a time when US data center construction continues wherever possible, even
as some insurers raise concerns , a drought seems a rather secondary concern for companies on a warpath toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

This has led some regions in the US to take a proactive approach, with
Seattle effectively banning new data center projects for an entire year as
the city grapples with higher electricity costs and a relative lack of
tangible benefits for residents.

Water and power are shaping up to be AI's biggest challenges over the next decade, even as companies continue to ravenously demand more compute, but others are less thrilled about the whole issue, pointing out that there are other concerns in play with rural, conservative populations, a key voter demographic for the current US administration, being the most affected by increasing water and power costs even as access becomes a bigger concern.

Andrew Coppin, the CEO of Ranchbot, a tool that allows ranchers to monitor their water use, summed up the situation, speaking to The Guardian :

"The concerns from farmers are real and justified. Datacenters are flavor of the month now, but we wouldnt make the choice to only be able to have a
shower on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. I mean, ChatGPT is a pretty
nice tool, but most people would prefer to have a beef steak if they had to choose."

Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/many-new-ai-data-centers-will-be-built-on-us-dro ught-hit-areas-raising-questions-over-water-and-power-supply

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