●Stories
●Firehose
●All
●Popular
●Polls
●Software
●Thought Leadership
Submit
●
Login
●or
●
Sign up
●Topics:
●Devices
●Build
●Entertainment
●Technology
●Open Source
●Science
●YRO
●Follow us:
●RSS
●Facebook
●LinkedIn
●Twitter
●
Youtube
●
Mastodon
●Bluesky
Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive
Forgot your password?
Close
wnewsdaystalestupid
sightfulinterestingmaybe
cflamebaittrollredundantoverrated
vefunnyunderrated
podupeerror
×
180418337
story
Posted
by
BeauHD
ember 18, 2025 @05:40PM
from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
A new study estimates that AI systems in 2025 consumed as much electricity as New York City emits in carbon pollution and used hundreds of billions of liters of water, driven largely by power-hungry data centers and cooling needs. Researchers say the real impact is likely higher due to poor transparency from tech companies about AI-specific energy and water use. "There's no way to put an extremely accurate number on this, but it's going to be really big regardless... In the end, everyone is paying the price for this," says Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at the VU Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies who published his paper today in the journal Patterns. The Verge reports: To crunch these numbers, de Vries-Gao built on earlier research that found that power demand for AI globally could reach 23GW this year -- surpassing the amount of electricity used for Bitcoin mining in 2024. While many tech companies divulge total numbers for their carbon emissions and direct water use in annual sustainability reports, they don't typically break those numbers down to show how many resources AI consumes. De Vries-Gao found a work-around by using analyst estimates, companies' earnings calls, and other publicly available information to gauge hardware production for AI and how much energy that hardware likely uses.
Once he figured out how much electricity these AI systems would likely consume, he could use that to forecast the amount of planet-heating pollution that would likely create. That came out to between 32.6 and 79.7 million tons annually. For comparison, New York City emits around 50 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Data centers can also be big water guzzlers, an issue that's similarly tied to their electricity use. Water is used in cooling systems for data centers to keep servers from overheating. Power plants also demand significant amounts of water needed to cool equipment and turn turbines using steam, which makes up a majority of a data center's water footprint. The push to build new data centers for generative AI has also fueled plans to build more power plants, which in turn use more water and (and create more greenhouse gas pollution if they burn fossil fuels).
AI could use between 312.5 and 764.6 billion liters of water this year, according to de Vries-Gao. That reaches even higher than a previous study conducted in 2023 that estimates that water use could be as much as 600 billion liters in 2027. "I think that's the biggest surprise," says Shaolei Ren, one of the authors of that 2023 study and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. "[de Vries-Gao's] paper is really timely... especially as we are seeing increasingly polarized views about AI and water," Ren adds. Even with the higher projection for water use, Ren says de Vries-Gao's analysis is "really conservative" because it only captures the environmental effects of operating AI equipment -- excluding the additional effects that accumulate along the supply chain and at the end of a device's life.
You may like to read:
Judge Hints Vizio TV Buyers May Have Rights To Source Code Licensed Under GPL
North Korean Infiltrator Caught Working In Amazon IT Department Thanks To Lag
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Load All Comments
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
/Sea
Score:
5
4
3
2
1
0
-1
More
Login
Forgot your password?
Close
Close
Log In/Create an Account
●
All
●
Insightful
●
Informative
●
Interesting
●
Funny
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
bydavidwr ( 791652 ) writes:
I get that the heat has to go somewhere, but there are ways to build a system that doesn't "consume" much water.
Building these kinds of systems may cost more cash up-front but the cost to the people in your state/country (which becomes a political/regulatory cost to you down the road) of using water in areas where water is scarce needs to be factored in.
byliqu1d ( 4349325 ) writes:
I think it's to do with the size. Closed loop would need a much greater surface area to dispel the heat compared to an evaporative tower.
byXXongo ( 3986865 ) writes:
OK run the coolant through giant refrigerators once it's outside. This is easy.
Uh, I take it you don't actually know how refrigerators work? Or is this intended as ironic?
byboaworm ( 180781 ) writes:
They use evaporation towers. You "consume" water in liquid form and produce water in gas form (humidity).
So the water molecules are not destroyed, but the water does not return to the water source, it dissipates into the air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
bydjp2204 ( 713741 ) writes:
Donâ(TM)t forget that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, much worse than CO2 is
byblue trane ( 110704 ) writes:
Why ignore cloud albedo?
●nt threshold.
byLordofWinterfell ( 90845 ) writes:
They are building them. I think the early âoeAI Datacenterâ was built for size, not efficiency. Regular AC, because it was industry standard.
Then they saw how much power is being consumed, how much their chips are being slammed for calculations and realized this was unsustainable.
lol
Now the designs are all-in for efficiency. Zero water (aka closed loop) are the next generation being built right now. More efficient chips, efficiency for the infrastructure, even on backup power generation.
So yeah ,
byHadlock ( 143607 ) writes:
Water consumption doesn't matter much (or at all) near these places:
1. Colombia river basin
2. Mississippi River
3. The entire east coast from Virgina, south to Florida
There's no incentive to conserve water in these areas, access to fresh water is limitless. half to three quarters of data centers are in areas with no problems with water access; the hysterics around water use is being weaponized, rather than rationalized. If you have a data center in California or Arizona, water is more of an issue, but they often use more efficient cooling loops there.
Parent
twitter
facebook
byTeun ( 17872 ) writes:
You seem to have a rather narrow view on where these data centers are build.
Like here in Europe several are planned (or have already been build) in areas where fresh drinking quality water is becoming a scarce recourse.
A cooling system with evaporation towers is better than dumping it in an already heated river, building the centers in populated areas and using the heat output for district heating is a solution that works in winter time, this solves energy and water use issues.
But then you still need a s
byGreen Mountain Bot ( 4981769 ) writes:
It might seem that way, but all of these areas have their own issues with water supply. Just because the water is there doesn't mean you can drink it - For example, there is a ton of pollution in the water of the Mississippi basin. Same with those east coast locations, which are also facing inexorable encroachment from unending suburban development. The health of the water has gotten better thanks to now-gutted environmental laws, but there are powerful people who have no interest in continuing that pro
byMindragon ( 627249 ) writes:
Lawn grass and other urban landscape irrigation in Texas use approximately 1.9 million to 4 million acre-feet of water per year, which is between 619 billion and 1.3 trillion gallons annually. The total water used for all irrigation in Texas, which includes agriculture, is about 7.6 million acre-feet per year (over 2.4 trillion gallons).
The exact total for 2024 is not available, but estimates project that Texas data centers will use nearly 50 billion gallons of water this year
10% of lawn usage not even cou
bylucifuge31337 ( 529072 ) writes:
They cost more up front and they cost more in the long term. As long as water stays cheap there is "no reason" (commercially) to do thing differnetly. That's how this works.
byallo ( 1728082 ) writes:
One of the reasons is, how do you cool the closed-loop water? Using an open loop secondary system is one possibility. And for ecology, the open loop does not need to use potable water, gray water is fine for that and many systems already run on gray water.
byHadlock ( 143607 ) writes:
It sounds like they're permanently destroying water or something. Many datacenters line the colombia river, which is both an excellent hydroelectric and limitless water supply, and then the other big cluster is in the SE near Virgina and into the Carolinas, which are frequently flooding,
764.6 billion liters of water is about the same water usage as NYC uses in 200 days
764.6 billion liters of water is about 8 days worth of water used by California agriculture
twitter
facebook
byabulafia ( 7826 ) writes:
I can't tell if you're intentionally being dense or not.
Suppose that water headed for California almond farms instead was diverted to Arizona golf courses. What's the problem, right? Not like the water was destroyed or something.
You may as well ask, what's the problem with inflation? Not like money is destroyed when you spend it.
byh33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) writes:
God bless those farmers out there milking almonds in the hot sun all day. It's a thankless job, but all of our lattes depend on them.
byblue trane ( 110704 ) writes:
"That's the problem with inflation, it's grand theft"
Since we all acknowledge that markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent, why stick to quaint old fairy tales like the quantuty theory of money, especially as there was practically no inflation, despite mainstream predictions by the Fed itself, after the 400% increase in base money?
Remember Fischer Black in "Noise"?
"the price level and rate of inflation are literally indeterminate. They are whatever people think they will be. They are
●rrent threshold.
bysabbede ( 2678435 ) writes:
Since it's a cooling system, I think the better analogy would be if water headed for almond farms was instead routed through some extra pipes first and warmed in the process.
Think about it for a minute and see if you can come up with any reason that potable water run through cooling pipes would somehow cease to be potable. Then tell me if it can't just be returned to the clean water supply.
byabulafia ( 7826 ) writes:
I agree that in theory it is entirely possible to reuse DC cooling water.
I also maintain that this will not, in fact, happen.
This is the same game politicians constantly play. Sure, passing this law means closing the factory which will will put thousands out of work. But we could offer retraining opportunities! We won't, but we could.
●nt threshold.
byrsilvergun ( 571051 ) writes:
When a data center is done with the water it is not potable anymore and it is extraordinarily expensive to make it potable again. To the point where it might be cheaper to do desalinization.
None of this is necessary but it is cheaper and these data centers are already unprofitable right now and not replacing enough wages to make them profitable.
So yes molecularly speaking the water still exists but it's not in a state usable by human beings and we do not have the capacity to put it back in that stat
byHadlock ( 143607 ) writes:
I don't think anyone expected water exposed to the atmosphere in a waterfall like fashion to be re-added to the public water supply. I'm curious where you live that you haven't seen evaporative cooling in person. Maybe you live in Norway or Iceland. The water that doesn't evaporate is recycled, and when the resivor drops below level X, it adds more municipal water to the system. I hope this clears some things up for you about 100 year old cooling system design
bysabbede ( 2678435 ) writes:
Why isn't it potable anymore? It just ran through some pipes, probably copper tubes, like it does in homes and businesses. It was heated, but that doesn't make it non-potable. If that were the case the coffee I just drank would have killed me.
byTalon0ne ( 10115958 ) writes:
Because that's the way we can say Trump is evil. Typical NPR democrat lies by omission nonsense...
There's a whole documentary on the topic of lie-by-omission news coverage you can watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
byrsilvergun ( 571051 ) writes:
Google the phrase "why can't data center water be drunk?"
They treat it with chemicals to prevent it from corroding the pipes. Removing those chemicals would be extremely expensive.
I think one of the major problems is people can't wrap their heads around why they aren't going to have electricity and water because there isn't any real good reason for it. And since we all grew up with civilization the idea that the wealthiest capitalists on the planet are going to eliminate both capitalism and civiliza
bysabbede ( 2678435 ) writes:
Well, that's a problem that's pretty damn easy to solve. Just read up a bit on what they treat for, and wouldn't you know it - NONE OF IT IS NEW. They face no issues that haven't already been dealt with non-toxically. None. I grew up with well water that needed almost as much treatment, knew people who needed more. Sometimes they have to soften it, sometimes they use descaler (could be non-toxic or avoided completely), sometimes they need to balance the pH. Big frikkin deal.
It's an already-solved pr
●rrent threshold.
● threshold.
bywakeboarder ( 2695839 ) writes:
Combined Cooling Heat and Power (CCHP) uses gas compressors to create cooling from waste energy, it saves some energy and a lot of water.
But I agree that AI systems are wasteful and the people building them need to find better, more efficient processes.
● threshold.
byGrowlley ( 6732614 ) writes:
invade some other country to bring freedom and democracy (probally Canada) and steal their water instead of oil in this case.
twitter
facebook
byBurdell ( 228580 ) writes:
Guess you haven't been keeping up with the news, where dear leader is preparing to invade Venezuela... who by the way has more oil than Iraq. It's not about drugs or anything else, it's about oil.
Well, also as a distraction from basically everything else.
byTeun ( 17872 ) writes:
If there was no market in the US these drug cartels would have to look for other sources of income.
Meaning to say, start doing something about the market for illicit drugs.
●nt threshold.
byKernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) writes:
Once he figured out how much electricity these AI systems would likely consume, he could use that to forecast the amount of planet-heating pollution that would likely create. That came out to between 32.6 and 79.7 million tons annually. For comparison, New York City emits around 50 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
So one big city's worth for the entire planet? It actually does not seem so bad when you put it that way.
twitter
facebook
byLindleyF ( 9395567 ) writes:
Or so says this guy: https://andymasley.substack.co... [substack.com]
byJogar the Barbarian ( 5830 ) writes:
consumed as much electricity as New York City emits in carbon pollution
I didn't know pollution was measured in kilowatt-hours.
bysabbede ( 2678435 ) writes:
A mass of CO2 cannot be converted into watts. The premise is bunk.
byhwstar ( 35834 ) writes:
AI tokens are horribly inefficient to produce. The energy inefficiency of a rack of AI processors sort of reminds me of the early days of computing with the Eniac completed in 1945 (150 kW for both), The problem is, there are way more AI racks today then there were Eniacs. If electricity is scarce, then inefficient users should be charged more in order to incentivize them to become more efficient.
Personally, I don't think GPU's are going to be the way that AGI is achieved. They're just too inefficient. The
by0xG ( 712423 ) writes:
Higher prices for water, energy, RAM, SSD, real estate, etc.
All so that they can build the AIs - which will in turn take our jobs.
It's a viscous circle.
bykackle ( 910159 ) writes:
I've been in the water industry for 23 years. To counter what someone above posted, design engineers are asking us for water system quotes for data centers today that will consume a few million gallons per day. That's equivalent to what a town of tens of thousands of people would use per day (influent and effluent). So, it's like adding another small population stressor, everywhere they're built.
It goes without saying that water is a critical resource. And its ease of access IS shrinking.
●nt threshold.
There may be more comments in this discussion. Without JavaScript enabled, you might want to turn on Classic Discussion System in your preferences instead.
●
313 commentsAcer To Raise US Laptop Prices 10% After Tariffs
●
278 commentsCalifornia Now Has 68% More EV Chargers Than Gas Nozzles, Continues Green Energy Push
●
275 commentsBYD Unveils New Super-Charging EV Tech With Peak Speeds of 1,000 kW
●
275 commentsCalifornia Has 48% More EV Chargers Than Gas Nozzles
●
275 commentsMuch of the World's Solar Gear is Made Using Fossil Power in China
North Korean Infiltrator Caught Working In Amazon IT Department Thanks To Lag
Judge Hints Vizio TV Buyers May Have Rights To Source Code Licensed Under GPL
Slashdot Top Deals
Slashdot
●
●
ofloaded
●
Submit Story
You will lose an important tape file.
●FAQ
●Story Archive
●Hall of Fame
●Advertising
●Terms
●Privacy Statement
●About
●Feedback
●Mobile View
●Blog
Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
Copyright © 2026 Slashdot Media. All Rights Reserved.
×
Close
Working...
North Korean Infiltrator Caught Working In Amazon IT Department Thanks To Lag
37comments
Judge Hints Vizio TV Buyers May Have Rights To Source Code Licensed Under GPL
38comments
Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
Copyright © 2026 Slashdot Media. All Rights Reserved.
×
Close
Working...