Concerns over the environmental impact of datacenters in the US state of Virginia are being raised again amid claims their water consumption has stepped up by almost two-thirds since 2019, and AI could make it worse.

Virginia is described as the datacenter capital of the world, particularly Northern Virginia - as reported by The Register recently - where it is understood there are about 300 facilities.

According to the Financial Times, water consumption by bit barns in some areas has increased markedly over the past five years by almost two-thirds. It cites data gathered by freedom of information requests to claim that more than 1.85 billion US gallons was used in 2023, up from 1.13 billion gallons in 2019.

Those figures came from water authorities in Northern Virginia in Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, and Fauquier counties.

Water is typically used in datacenters for cooling, and the FT points to anxiety over expected increases in demand for computing infrastructure due to AI, which is particularly power intensive during processing for training of large models. It reported that some existing facilities are in water-stressed regions, including parts of Virginia suffering from droughts.

There has already been considerable growth in the datacenter ecosystem in the area concerned, with trade body the Northern Virginia Technology Council reporting that it saw a fivefold expansion in capacity in the period between 2015 and 2023.

Concerns were raised previously about datacenters eating up land and available electricity as well as water resources in Virginia. A bunch of climate advocacy and historical preservation organizations formed the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition at the end of 2023 over worries that bit barns were being built without considering the consequences, according to a report by Grist, a media organization covering environmental issues.

It claimed that datacenters served by the Loudoun water utility had increased use of drinking water by more than 250 percent between 2019 and 2023, and that water usage peaks during the summer months when the risk of drought is the highest.

Not everyone agrees. Commenting on the FT article via a LinkedIn post, Michael Lesniak of water systems company Aquatech claimed that most datacenters in Loudoun County use recycled sewage water that would otherwise be dumped in the Chesapeake Bay. He also claimed that most new facilities use no water for cooling.

The bigger bit barn operators such as AWS have certainly pledged to take action over water consumption, with AWS announcing back in 2022 its intention to become water positive by 2030.

However, Microsoft admitted last year that water consumption at its facilities had increased by a third, blaming the boom in generative AI adoption.

And it isn't just a problem in the US. Last year, controversial UK utility Thames Water said it was considering measures to force datacenter operators on its patch to cut water use, including fitting flow restrictors or charging operators more at peak times. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/08/19/virginia_datacenter_water_consumption/