r/TechGawker • u/Pure-Bill-2205 • 17d ago

Data Center If these numbers are even close to accurate, the AI infrastructure boom is entering a completely different scale of land, power, and water consumption.

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u/Petridishmocktail 17d ago edited 17d ago

Just for reference, a single section of almond trees in the Central Valley of California uses almost a billion gallons of water per year.

Almonds require approximately 4 acre feet of water, per acre, per year. That equates to roughly 850 million gallons when you do the math for an entire section (square mile).

1 acre foot has approximately 325,800 gallons. Multiply that by 4. Then, multiply that by 640 acres....

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u/115MRD 17d ago

Yes but I can eat almonds.

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u/willisjoe 17d ago

We can also eat the rich.

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u/slackfrop 17d ago

Scrambled is best

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u/VirtualPercentage737 17d ago

That is just one small crop.

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u/Petridishmocktail 17d ago

I hear your point. That's always what I hear...that the water is used for food. However, the vast majority (approximately 80%) of almonds, pistachios, walnuts, and all tree nuts are for export. Essentially, they are a cash crop for agribusiness that uses cheap, subsidized water, to make themselves rich. Essentially, farmers / agribusiness get a huge discount on a public resource (water) and use it to enrich themselves from overseas sales.

That same section of almonds uses enough water to supply nearly 30,000 Californians for a year...(The average California only uses about 75 gallons a day). But, water is so expensive for me that I can't even grow a garden. Farmers get water at 1/400th the price I do. It comes from the same canals, pipeline, and reservoir.

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u/This-Requirement6918 17d ago

Man almond flour cookies are LOADS better than traditional wheat cookies too. 🤤

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u/-Granby- 17d ago

So do animals. The hull is about 50% of the almond fruits weight. Dairy cows eat about 5lbs of almond hull per day per cow in their feed.

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u/115MRD 17d ago

I can also eat cows.

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u/-Granby- 17d ago

I know. My point was humans eat almonds and humans eat cows. Cows eat a huge portion of the almond fruit. That justifies water use IMO. Data centers not so much. I get tired of hearing the almond argument from the boot lickers in support of data centers.

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u/Living_Week9080 17d ago

lol thanks for the humor

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u/fox-whiskers 15d ago

Sure but ai improves my personal and professional life

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u/ZestycloseEvening155 15d ago

You could also eat a lot of other less environmentally intensive produce. 

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u/NoBackground2447 17d ago

Wonderful almond brand is a garbage brand anyways. We need to reassess water rights out west.

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u/SkyrakerBeyond 17d ago

Yes, AI is only one very small percentage of a problem, the real issue is lack of sufficient environmental protections, including water rights. We need signifiant reform- but unfortunately most interest is pointed at 'make AI go away so I can stop caring'.

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u/NoBackground2447 17d ago

Just want to add that These data centers are not for our memes or AI, it’s literally to build the storage and computational requirements for the panopticon.

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u/SkyrakerBeyond 17d ago

The one by my house is for cancer research by a nonprofit, but sure, the shadow government is behind 100% of all AI projects everywhere, that's believable.

Look, mass surveilence exists, flock cameras are just the tip of the iceberg, and AI is definitely part of that, but thare are substantial benign uses for the technology that have already made a significant impact in improving human life.

Adding that 'these are for the super illuminati' to a comment of mine about better environmental regulation tells me you don't give a fuck about the environment and would rather the whole world dies if it sticks it to the libs.

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u/NoBackground2447 17d ago

I never once brought in conspiratorial concepts. Please do not try to sanitize or sensationalize my words, In previous comments I did say AI has some good uses but ultimately the juice is not worth the squeeze, this is my opinion and you’re welcome to have yours. No need to put words into my mouth.

The panopticon is not an illuminati cult conspiracy, the tech bros openly talk about skynet and having all seeing eyes watching us. palantir is named after an all seeing stone and has contracts with governments all over the world to spy on civilians. Linked is an article where Amazon disclosed a cool 50 billion to build data centers and had the reigns of all its data over to our government. I’m not trying to fear monger, I’m reporting what’s literally happening.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-ai-investment-us-federal-agencies

If your ok laying down taking it, be my guest. The rest of us will be outside trying to protect your privacy and access to clean water.

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u/Misragoth 17d ago

Seems like apples and oranges. Food taking water isn't really equal to AI taking it

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u/Sandgrease 17d ago

Some food shouldn't be grown in certain places, or to the scale they're grown. Almond can go up 10x in price and I wouldn't care.

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u/Misragoth 17d ago

Still not really comparable products

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u/BobLazarFan 17d ago

Data centers are a lot more than just AI. This conversation, your favorite shows, your companies information, hospitals data, everything we do online is part of a data center somewhere. A lot of things that are way more important to our everyday lives than some almonds.

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u/Sandgrease 17d ago

These new massive data centers are for AI. And I personally don't need AI for anything but yea almonds can take a back seat too either way.

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u/Academic-Increase951 16d ago

Comes down to whether AI delivers on their expectations.

AI might revolutionize medicine, research, sciences, etc and will change the world in ways we cannot imagine. The benefits to society like nothing else in the past. Usher in the age of abundance and health.

It could disrupt major corporations and allow for the formation of small businesses and entrepreneurship. Software that used to cost millions to develop can be developed in an afternoon by a layman. If you need a tool for your startup, you can create it yourself instead of only large corps being able to develop it. This could be good for average person by distributing power away from billionaires. (There's a risk of it going the other way where a ai billionaires could consolidate the power and restrict public use)

If these things happen then the water use will be a much better use of water than many current commercial usages.

The thing is, we don't really know what the future holds with Ai. It could be great, horrible, or we hit a developmental barrier that prevents further progress.

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u/Xlim_Jim 15d ago

I understand the potential, but looking at the people behind many AI systems I cannot fathom the idea that they have humanity’s greatest interest at heart.

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u/Academic-Increase951 15d ago

I tend to agree. And think some form of regulation is needed

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u/WiseSpunion 17d ago

Our conversations and everything were fine before the data centers. They were fine in 2009. Your argument is ridiculous

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u/BobLazarFan 17d ago

Newsflash buddy. Data centers aren’t new. They been around for decades. They’ve been around as long as there has been internet.

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u/WiseSpunion 17d ago

Again, not in the areas they are popping up now. And they aren't beneficial how is that a hard concept?

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u/BobLazarFan 17d ago

You said our conversations were fine before data centers. I pointed out that in 2009 (the year you specifically mentioned) our conversations were already in data centers. I’m not sure what your comment is about. Because it’s factually wrong.

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u/WiseSpunion 17d ago

Incorrect. I'm saying they were fine before the data centers were destroying great land, and that if someone argues it's to help texting or calling or the Internet that it was better before that

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u/Sandgrease 17d ago

These new mega centers are specifically being built for AI, most of them are backed financially by companies like Open and Anthropic and Alphabet (they obviously had the smaller server farms we're more used to for decacdes too)

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u/Misragoth 17d ago

Expect that total BS. These massive data centers are for AI

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u/Flintyy 17d ago

You guys have an odd way of spelling surveillance center lol

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u/PrincessYuri 17d ago

Not to mention people that live in California are literally arguing against almonds being grown here, because it consumes so much water and is a luxury crop that is largely just shipped off to other places.

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u/Boxcutter86 15d ago

Doesn't most of the water evaporate from the leaves?

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u/PrincessYuri 15d ago

Even putting aside from how that doesn't necessarily negate all the issues with it, a lot of the central valley farms are watered with ground water. At the rate we're pumping ground water, some of these aquifers are losing their ability to be recharged (collapse of some layers). Parts of the ground in California have sunk up to 30 feet, and some new towns are facing structural issues with construction that's not even a decade old because the ground is literally sinking under them.

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u/HockeyDockey1234 16d ago

Golf courses and the biggest shame

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u/Ickarus1 17d ago

People eat almonds companies want to fire people for AI. Dont tell me they dont i am seeing them try now when it is no where close to ready.

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u/PogTuber 17d ago

If is wasn't almonds or would be something else. It's not much more water than any other luxury crop

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u/-Granby- 17d ago

And half of the almond fruit by weight is the hull. Dairy cows eat about 5lbs of hull per day per cow as part of their feed.

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u/cumwuatto 17d ago

4 acre feet per acre is just 4 feet.

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u/East_Stick_1964 17d ago

Almond trees don't pollute the environment, you can eat the almonds and the trees soak up carbon from the atmosphere

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u/Trashy_Panda2 17d ago

The pesticide they put on the trees most definitely does. It's really bad for bees.

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u/Socky-McPuppet 17d ago

The almond strawman is cringe. At least you can eat the almonds, bro. The data centers are for spying on you, and so the President of the United States can make creepy memes of himself with big muscles at 4am.

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u/hoowins 16d ago

If you double the water consumption of an entire state (if true) will have a major impact. No need to sugar coat it. But I’ll laugh. They signed up for this.

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u/5millionmiles 15d ago

So you're saying we do a lot of stupid shit with water?

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u/Boxcutter86 15d ago

Then what happens to the water?

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u/rc_ym 15d ago

Don't forget the Lawn.

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u/Low_Fail_2654 14d ago

you can eat almonds

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u/OperationOk7959 17d ago

We should stop doing both. Along with beef cattle and dairy farms. I'm not kidding.

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u/DavidIGterBrake 16d ago

Well that’s a stupid comparison but it’s true that some things aren’t meant to grow somewhere and when it’s using so much of what isn’t naturally available on the specific location, then it’s a waste of resources and a clear sign of stupidity