The AI Boom Could Triple Data Center Water Use by 2030

The massive data center capacity scale-up underway has focused attention on the scale of water required for these facilities to operate. Rystad Energy estimates that without water-saving measures in place, global water consumption by data centers could rise to 644 billion liters per year by 2030. However, active mitigation could reduce demand to 388 billion liters, representing worst- and best-case scenarios as data center capacity ramps up, driven largely by the growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in everyday life. Forecasting the…