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8/8/2025

WT Staff

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Give us a call at 877-52-WATER (877-529-2837), or email us at info@wtny.us



Friday August 8, 2025 436 pm EDT

Data centers run our increasingly digital world
Can we afford the high water usage?

Digital Infrastructure is the term used for the physical components supporting digital search and storage, machine learning (aka AI), data tracking, video streaming, the nuts and bolts that deliver the digital services demand. Data centers are the facilities housing the physical components, the servers. Industry experts say they need more power and water to keep up with demand.

According to Yahoo Finance, "The data center industry is booming with the increasing popularity of the Internet of Things (IoT), 5g network, and industry 4.0. Digital commerce stores and business owners are relying on the largest data center companies in the world as they provide big data analytics that enhances efficiency, security, and productivity of daily operations." The trends in data center growth are all upward, good news for investors, possibly not so good for water security.

Hot and Thirsty Dozen - the Top Data Center companies in North America
  • Amazon.(NASDAQ:AMZN). Washington. 1.5M employees. 321 data centers. $638B revenue.
  • Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL). California. 187,103 employees. 106 data centers. $371.2B revenue.
  • Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT). Washington. 228,000. 238 data centers. $281B revenue.
  • Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META). California. 75,945 employees. 24 data centers. $178.8B revenue
  • Equinix Inc. (NASDAQ: EQIX). California. 7903 employees. 210 data centers. $4.4B revenue
  • Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM). Massachussetts. 7922 employees. 15 data centers. 3.5M sq ft. $4.2B revenue
  • Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR). California. 1860 employees. 280 data centers, $2.5B revenue
  • Cyxtera Technologies. Florida. 1400 employees. 62 data centers, $1.1B revenue
  • CyrusOne Inc. (NASDAQ: CONE) Texas. 517 employees. 48 data centers, 4M sq ft. $821M revenue
  • Coresite (NYSE: COR) Colorado. 442 employees. 24 data centers, 4.6M sq ft. $481.8M revenue
  • QTS Realty Trust (NYSE: QTS), Kansas. 739 employees. 26 data centers, $446.5M revenue
  • 365 Data Centers, Connecticut. 81 employees. 17 data centers. 230,000 sq ft. $11.4 M revenue
(Sources: Yahoo Finance, NASDAQ)

The 1371 data centers included in the Hot and Thirsty Dozen above demand a phenomenal load of electricity to operate, generating waste heat that could be captured and redirected in a district energy grid. These facilities also need cooling, whether from thermal transfer technology or mechanical chillers. Miguel Yañez-Barnuevo has released the second installment in a series called Data Centers and Water Consumption, carried by Environmental and Energy Study Institute. In the second article, June 25, 2025, Yañez-Barnuevo states, "Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people."

Georgia's Newton County became a national headline in July for impact a Meta data center campus has had on the local water supply. Taps dripped with brown sludge, sediment in well water stopped the flow entirely. Sam Altman of OpenAI defends the use of water by data centers, claiming AI is not going to use up all the water. In a social media post earlier this year, Altman presented a chart suggesting 300 AI queries use about a gallon of water. Yañez-Barnuevo in the scholarly article Data Centers and Water Consumption warns about the future energy and water demands of new data centers. "With larger and new AI-focused data centers, water consumption is increasing alongside energy usage and carbon emissions."
The answer may lie in district energy heat exchangers operating with a closed-loop, cold water cooling system for the capture and redistribution of thermal energy. Watch for the upcoming article series on District Energy, coming soon.

See an article on Net Zero heritage building Fairmont Royal York Hotel, District Energy featuring Deep Lake Water Cooling, here.








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