Internet machines consume as much water as a city of 8 million people

While there are no exact figures on global digital water consumption, estimates suggest it could represent a very large set of hyperscale data centers, of which there are around 700 in the world alone, to which traditional ones must be added. 420,000 million liters of water per year, which is equivalent to a city like New York with a population of approximately 8 million.

With this panorama companies launch innovation race to “look for alternatives” and solving the problem of the huge water footprint of the internet, which adds to the also huge energy footprint and pollutes the environment when renewable energies are not used.

This is what architect Marina Otero, winner of Harvard’s prestigious Wheelwright architecture award, also a graduate of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and Columbia University in New York, and former research director of the National Center for Architecture, explains. Efe, Dutch architecture.

Alternatively submerge them in the ocean

The focus right now is on big tech companies development of water recycling systems or use of gray water“. Also in construction data centers in the oceanThe expert explained where the coolness of the water cools the servers.

He stated that US companies have already carried out tests in this sense, while China will have large-scale plans to sink its data centers into the ocean.

“We don’t know how all this will affect the species; Heat from these facilities will occasionally and locally increase sea temperatures.“He warns his architect.

Data centers with servers are also being developed directly immersed in mineral oils to maintain a constant temperature. “The system works very well and extends the lifespan of the servers,” he added.

Otero, who will travel around the world this year as part of the Wheelwright Award given by Harvard to architects, visiting different internet infrastructure models and looking for sustainability solutions, said, “Data centers need constant temperatures to prevent servers from melting due to overheating.”

Research is also being done in the United States with synthetic DNA molecules for data storage without water or energy consumption; There are also startup plans contemplating this idea. will one day move data centers into space, An already cold environment where infrastructure can be “directly powered by solar energy.”

Data centers “draw water from the network for cooling and consume energy”“; something similar to what happens in home air conditioners, although to a very different order of magnitude.

“People need to know,” he said, “that mobile phone information does not hang in the air; stored on water-powered servers and energy and emits higher amounts of CO2 than the aviation industry.

“Just like we turn off the tap in a hotel or do not wash towels every day, this sustainable awareness needs to be transferred to the digital consumption of data not only by the population but also by companies,” he added.

In countries with low rainfall and long droughts, such as the Mediterranean or South America, excessive water consumption by data centers “is starting to become a big problem,” he said.

“When a data center is located in an area, it competes directly with nearby populations for waterand the same goes for energy,” he continues.

New mega data center in Spain despite drought

He referred to Spain, where one of the world’s largest technology companies is expected to arrive. US will soon build a mega data center in an area where water is not abundant.

He warned that competition between people and data centers for access to water was already leading to protests from citizens.

For example, Residents of a neighborhood in Santiago, Chile, stopped a data center After one of the US’s major tech companies showed that “the installation would massively deplete water from local groundwater, leaving the population virtually without resources”.

Finally, the company rejected “construction plans pending the development of cooling systems that would reduce the facility’s water consumption.”

Unlike hot countries, the climate is more favorable in Scandinavian countries such as Scandinavia It helps cool data centers by reducing the temperature difference between the outside and the inside.

Although water stress is lower, they are very innovative regions in terms of sustainability and the search for alternatives that will reduce water and energy consumption.

In cities like Stockholm, intense heat from data centers is reused and distributed as heating in the city. There are also projects that “recycle” the thermal effect of digital infrastructures to heat greenhouses where vegetables are grown and species are cultivated.

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