AIBU to question hosepipe bans while AI water use gets little scrutiny

[MariaMagdalenaa]

AIBU to think it’s ridiculous that there is a hosepipe ban and I cannot water my plants in this heat whilst I see hardly any discussions or questions raised about the massive drain on our water resources by AI?

Golf courses use much more than data centres.

Nobody says a word 🤔

I’ve read it, so you don’t have to…

Global and UK water consumption statistics for AI and data centres
The scale of water consumption by AI and data centres is significant and rapidly
increasing, posing a global challenge with direct implications for the UK.
Globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the data centre sector
consumes over 560 billion litres of water annually. Projections indicate this figure could
rise dramatically, reaching as high as 1,200 billion litres by 2030.13

I am just putting into perspective. I am not worried about the hosepipe ban and my plants. I am really worried about the lack of debate around AIs demand on energy resources even if most data centres are in the US. It’s one world.

I thought we had about 500 of them just in England

The issue is water companies use a hosepipe ban to distract from the fact that their maintenance of their facilities is failing

Oh, this makes more sense
I was wondering why they'd need fresh

The whole water infrastructure really worries me here. The population has gone up massively.

https://datacentremagazine.com/news/how-closed-loop-cooling-is-reshaping-data-centre-design

AI is useful and productive though. It basically has done my work for me this past week.

The M3 isn't near Windsor. It's not far ( about 11 miles) but some if not most of the data centres are in Slough, the other side of the M4 from Windsor.

I voted YANBU, because it is true. Apparently things like AI centres, bombs and so do not have a carbon footprint or something like that. Only the common citizen, for the look of it.

But also, for plants, you can collect rainwater and use that. I know space can be an issue, but if you do need a hose to keep your plants going, then you should have space to get a tank. I could keep mine going with 3-4 watering cans and I do have a rain water tank. We do have large trees shading them, so I have not watered them yet, actually. Here it rained on Monday too.

I thought you were going to ask about pools for kids and hosepipes fights in the back garden. Luckily, there is no hosepipe ban here yet.

Really? It’s the boat people innit? 🙄 Nothing to do with the billions of gallons that Ai centres use.

Again, from the report

Cooling Systems
This represents the most direct and substantial water consumption within data centres
themselves. Servers, which are required for AI training and inference, generate
significant heat, necessitating efficient cooling systems to maintain optimal operating
temperatures and prevent overheating.6 A common method, evaporative cooling,
dissipates heat through both heat transfer (to air without evaporation) and latent heat
transfer (with evaporation), but crucially, around 80% of the water used in this process
is lost to evaporation, requiring continuous replenishment with fresh water.

Edit. In reply to emerald roulette

If only that were true but courtesy of mr google there are currently between 475 and 564 active data centres in the UK. Most major industry trackers and media outlets estimate the total count to be around 500 operational facilities nationwide.

Good question OP.

https://sustainableict.blog.gov.uk/2025/09/17/ais-thirst-for-water/
Our own goverment says they do use plenty of water.
Some of it in the cooling system, some in electricity production, manufacturing of chips and so on. You always have to take the whole life cycle of the item, its energy usage and end of life disposal when talking about environmental impact.

Have you ever entered a large server room? Or got the cooling system failing? Even one just of the size of the average living room gets hot hot pretty quickly!

Everyone bangs on about data centre water use literally every time AI is mentioned, as though data centres never existed before AI and half the infrastructure of our lives isn't reliant on computer stuff that needs data storage.

YABU to object to AI water use but also ignore a hosepipe ban to water your own garden, because it's inconsistent. But the water being used to cool AI centres is probably not the same reason your local water company is asking people to be sparing with their water use. These are two separate issues.

https://www.thebrockovichreport.com/p/the-new-pollution-is-data-and-its

Everyone is linking to stats about global water usage by AI. Most of them are in the USA and China. The current UK water supply is ~14,000 billion litres/day (bottom of page 7 of the paper @MezeAndNibbles linked to). In the UK, data centers use 1.87 million litres per year (https://mosl.co.uk/news-and-events/news/data-centre-study-calls-for-new-reporting-framework-to-manage-water-use).

So in the UK, data centers currently use about 0.0000000000366% of our available water. We really dont have many data centers.

I would argue we need to look at shit being pumped into our rivers, massive profits being made before we worry about usage

An we not worry about both?

That link doesn’t work, but I would be interested in reading it. The report I linked to was talking about the increase in UK data centres. These centres are classed as critical to our national infrastructure, so they will be increasing.
Our water resources are at breaking point already, so we need to work out how we are going to supply both domestic and retail water.

Of which the vast majority are traditional (non-AI) datacentres that use air cooling rather than water cooling. Air cooling is perfectly sufficient for traditional servers without GPUs.

The handful of water-cooled AI datacentres we do have in the UK use closed-loop cooling so very little water is wasted (a little from evaporation). Open loop just doesn’t make sense economically in the UK.

Sorry, the full stop and bracket got added to my original link, this should work:
https://mosl.co.uk/news-and-events/news/data-centre-study-calls-for-new-reporting-framework-to-manage-water-use

Also my maths might have been wrong by a factor of 1000, but the point still stands.

I asked ChatClawdRok who said ‘why are you asking me? If there’s a hosepipe ban, you don’t use me in solidarity.’

What about avocado water? Or is that different?

An interesting report. Good ol’ WRC.
What struck me was this paragraph. Interesting that these large consumption data centres have come online recently. AI?
‘This consumption is highly skewed towards the large water users, with the top six data centres accounting for 65% of the sector’s water consumption. Many of these appear to have come online in the last few years’