Demand for water cannot be an 'afterthought' in AI push

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨zero_gravitas@aussie.zone⁩ to ⁨australia@aussie.zone⁩

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-10/demand-for-data-centre-water-in-ai-push/106102208

In short:

Australia has more than 250 data centres and more in the pipeline, prompting experts to warn against using drinking water to cool servers.

It comes after the Commonwealth announced its National AI Plan after a two-year consultation period.

One water authority is already exploring the use of recycled waste water for data centres.

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Comments

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DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Hank Green did a good video on this yesterday

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Salvo@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Without water for cooling, these data centres will overheat and be forced to shutdown.

While I don’t condone EcoTerrorism, it would be advantageous to society as a whole if this happened.

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- Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Sabotage =/= terrorism
  
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- Artisian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  To be clear, they would shut down while they fix whatever you broke. Just like your computer, they shut off power long before silicone is melting.
  
  No need to sabotage the pipes (and waste water), you get this by cutting wires and blocking gates. Please do roleplay your sabotage before wasting everyone’s time and effort. Terrorism responsibly (or not at all is fine too).
  
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Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Driest continent on Earth.

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Artisian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Noting that they quote quantities and costs in the article, and those numbers are small compared to other industries (agriculture and flight in particular).

The prediction on total grid use by 2030 requires an extremely optimistic estimate of AI use demand. Either you believe AI is relatively useless, and this growth rate is crazy, or it’s useful and we can expect serious returns from the technology that make these costs seem negligible.

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