AI and the environment - Water Usage

Water Usage

All those powerful computers in data centres create a lot of heat. To keep them from overheating, data centres use huge cooling systems, and these systems often rely on freshwater.

In2022, Google used 19.5 million cubic metres of water to cool its data centres.  That’s 19,500,000,000 litres of water (a lot!) and a 20% increase on its 2021 usage.  The UK government has estimated that by 2027, global AI use will require up to 6.6 billion cubic metres of water per year – roughly twice the amount the UK’s households consume in a year.

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