KI könnte bis 2030 so viel Wasser verbrauchen wie 1,3 Milliarden Menschen
https://time.com/article/2026/06/03/ai-global-water-resources-un-report/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial
KI könnte bis 2030 so viel Wasser verbrauchen wie 1,3 Milliarden Menschen
https://time.com/article/2026/06/03/ai-global-water-resources-un-report/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial
26 Kommentare
then do what China’s doing build the data centers on the sea floor so no need for fresh water
From the article
The water used by artificial intelligence is expected to equal the needs of 1.3 billion people by 2030—threatening natural resources for billions around the world. That’s according to a new report from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) which quantifies the carbon, water, and land footprints of AI’s electricity use around the globe.
The report finds that AI’s environmental cost is often mismeasured—focusing solely on carbon emissions. However, cooling and generating power for data centers comes with a “water footprint,” while the energy infrastructure and supply chains to build the data centers have a “land footprint.” These are important factors to consider, the report says, when analyzing the stressors a region might be facing due to data centers.
By 2030, the report finds, global data centers powering artificial intelligence are projected to consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity. This is nearly triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria—countries that together are home to more than 650 million people. The water footprint of data centers is projected to equal the basic domestic water needs of all 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa for a year, while their land footprint could exceed 5,590 square miles, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area that’s currently home to more than 32 million people.
But switching to cleaner sources of energy isn’t as simple as it sounds. Minimizing one footprint could come at the expense of magnifying another, researchers say. For example, switching from coal to bioenergy cuts electricity’s carbon footprint by 70%—but increases its water footprint more than 30-fold and its land footprint 100-fold.
could they use salt water instead of fresh water? I mean what’s harder to come by?
Isnt this really disingenuous. I guarantee golf courses use far more water than 1.3billion people . Alot of industries use shit tonnes of water and no one bats an eye but when its ai its different. Why!
AI doesn’t use water, it heats up water, many AI datacentres are using closed source systems
Others take that water and use it for irrigation in nearby fields, as it’s perfectly good water just a few degrees warmer
This is fearmongering when beef has so many thousand times more water consumption than the annual per capita AI consumption
Go ahead and calculate how much water is used to make corn for ethanol production, *then* criticize AI water use.
We could just not have them. We were fine before AI, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything particularly useful for regular people. It’s a rich people making more money thing, isn’t it? Why are we spending our finite resources on something so stupid?
Did anybody tell him that the world is running out of freshwater? The glaciers that provided a lot of it are melting
inner coolers must use freshwater whilst after coolers may use salt water however, the condensers must be cleaned on a regular schedule
why not nuclear for energy production?
why excessive water usage when other methods of cooling exist?
the answer to both is that it’s cheaper in the short term to exploit the single most crucial life- sustaining resource on Earth at the expense of not only our species, but of all life as we know it.
That sounded dramatic, and it is, but is it not a fair assessment?
Or it could use as much as 1. Restrict usage, let the people with $$ figure it out.
Well we’re going to have to decrease the population by 1.3 billion to compensate – Tech CEOs
Fantastically disingenuous article
> The water footprint of data centers is projected to equal the **basic domestic** water needs of all 1.3 billion people **in Sub-Saharan Africa for a year**,
I.e. the title lies about **as much water as 1.3 bln people** – it only includes their basic domestic consumption, but not everything else, and then use people who don’t use much water currently. For real comparison, corn based ethanol fuel production in US already consumes 1.5 times more fresh water per year than their exaggerated projection for data centers for 2030.
„Use.“
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc)
My pc with local ai never asked for water, must be a wine drinker
Don’t worry. With ai taking all the jobs, humans won’t be able to afford to reproduce so we’ll lose 1.3 billion people naturally anyway
Where do you think the water goes? To heaven? It’s not leaving the earth.
Yeah but think about how much more productive AI is than entry level workers! /s
In regards to the title. All to give us the wrong answers!
I don’t understand. Isn’t the water circulated, cooled and returned? It’s not consumed, right? Please explain.
That’s nothing or peanuts when compared to water usage to grow almonds.
wtf is the end goal of this? Do billionaires think AI will crack the code to immortality so they don’t need people any more?
Look back at the industrial revolution and how much fossil fuels were used and destroyed and how it altered the environment.
Save your resources or stop future growth which is it gonna be? Theres no perfect world where you cam do both.
With the way how india behaves and how much they dont give fucks about the environment why should the U.S be handicapped.
its just to keep shit cool, right?
space is cold, why dont we put some data center up there
Y’all need to understand that neither AI nor people “using” water makes that water cease to exist.
Take a million gallons of water flowing down the missouri river. (A million gallons of water is not very much) Average flow at Omaha is 37,000 cfs, or 16 billion gallons per minute). Along the way down to the gulf of Mexico, that million gallons of water is going to go through literally hundreds of municipal water systems (where a million gallons will supply a town of about 6000 for a day), and dozens of power plants and data centers. Let’s say there are 500 such communities along the way. That same million gallons of water represents water “usage” of half a billion gallons and 3 million people for a single day (just on different days!). And once it gets to the gulf, it evaporates and heads back north to start the trip all over again.
And most human domestic water usage is for moving our shit and other filth out of our houses.
And that water has to be Evian-level purity to run through the pipes to avoid biofilm or mineralisation. Then, contaminated with metals and hot at 50c+, it can be dumped back in the river to kill any fish or organisms creating literal deadpools.