In communities grappling with the arrival of hyperscale data centers, a common reason residents cite in their opposition is the large amounts of water used to cool down their servers.
Tressie Kamp, assistant director of the Center for Water Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is working to find out just how much water is used by data centers.
In a recently published paper, “The Hidden Environmental Costs of Data Centers and AI,” Kamp investigates these water usage questions.
“These large-scale facilities have the potential — if we don’t all act quickly and oversee water impacts, energy impacts — to put an unchecked strain on shared natural resources, even for water-abundant areas like the Great Lakes,” Kamp told Wisconsin Public Radio.
The research is ongoing, but Kamp hopes it will be used for policymaking.
