Alleged leaders of ‘Reichsbürger’ group go on trial

The expansion of data centers in Germany as a result of the AI boom could massively strain local water resources, according to a study by an environmental research group.

The report by Öko-Institut, commissioned by Greenpeace, found that data centers in Germany currently consume around 13 billion liters (3.4 billion gallons) of water for cooling per year.

It said this demand could more than double to 27 billion liters per year by 2030 as a result of new mega data centers. That is on par with the drinking water needs of a city of around 580,000 people.

Data centers house hundreds of thousands of servers that consume a significant amount of energy and water, depending on the cooling technology.

“The trend toward ever-larger facilities with their enormous water consumption is exacerbating local water stress and triggering conflicts over water use,” Greenpeace digital expert Linda Klapdor said.

According to Greenpeace, nearly 30 large data centers with more than 100 megawatts of server capacity are planned in Germany, with an annual water demand of 200 million to 930 million liters, depending on the cooling technology used. 

Klapdor called for data centers in water-scarce areas to only go online if they use closed-loop water systems, which can reduce a data center’s continuous water consumption to zero.

About one-third of Germany’s roughly 1,200 data center operators currently use evaporative cooling systems during the summer months, Greenpeace said, meaning potable water used in these systems escapes into the atmosphere as vapor and is no longer available to the local water cycle.

“People who live near a data center are right to worry about their quality of life, drying-up wells, and rising water and electricity costs,” Klapdor said. 

She added that operators were only partially meeting obligations to report water consumption, and she called for more transparency, especially concerning the water use of planned mega data centers.