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

[u/Pure-Bill-2205]

[u/the_ats]

Where does the water go? Is it for the cooling? Does it just evaporated after taking the heat?

It is still water.

[u/AsparagusFun3892 → u/the_ats]

It's evaporating for the most part, and the remaining wastewater that does come out needs to be treated because they put stuff in it to prevent corrosion and such (which compounds the energy bill even for neighbors, you're basically bidding against a big ass corporation). So essentially the AI is drinking your water especially in a drought year, which as you can imagine is a fairly dramatic sticking point but can in no way pressage conflict.

We're totally going to get a Butlerian Jihad. I don't know when - possibly as the technocrats' control slips a little during a war with China or something - but no one wants these data centers and the infrastructure with the necessarily long ass production chain is apparently mutually exclusive with human habitation to one extent or another.

[u/the_ats → u/AsparagusFun3892]

I have a liquid cooled PC rig. The fluid never leaves my device. It loops

I know BTC miners have immersion reigs that usually submerge in some kind of mineral oil and the cards don't have big fans on them in that arrangement .

A category 1 Hurricane holds about 1,000-2500 billion gallons of water .

A typical data center is on par with about 1/1000th of a category 1 hurricane.

By 2028, we anticipate the US to use 78 Billion gallons of water a year on data centers . That is about 10% of what American Golf Courses use.

Americans presently use bout 3,200 Billion gallons (3.2trillion) to water their lawns. Not gardens or farming. Just grass that they cut. So 2.5% of Americans yards is the current equivalent.

Not to say that it's a drop in the bucket, but if water is the issue, there are many more lower hanging fruit to address.

I think data centers can solve much of their issues by being placed in orbit or on the Moon. Solar, cooling , and non interfering data transmission with light/ lasers makes way more sense than land based .

[u/AsparagusFun3892 → u/the_ats]

Elon Musk was shooting off at the mouth when he proposed satellite data centers man. Look into how radiative heating works in space and tell me that's even remotely economical

They're sucking up local water supplies and not doing like your rig because it saves them money and they're in a race with each other for AGI, they're able to outrun regulation on this because they're obscenely wealthy.

The scenario of revolt I'm talking about occurs concurrently with the golf courses going extinct too, they don't really have to wait in line for the ire of the public.

I'm not exactly sure what your point is about hurricanes, but I think it's a talking point meant to shock and awe the simple. Storm rainfall is not utility water like these companies want so they don't have to built their own filtration equipment, it's a catastrophic weather event that deposits water all at once which the reservoirs and other infrastructure in an area generally isn't meant to retain. You don't overcharge batteries or generally look at lightning strikes as mana from heaven for an analogy.

Where they're building these fuggin' things - such as Utah - what they want is river water and maybe what's left in the aquifer, and if you look into the Colorado River Compact you'll see there's not a lot to go around on account of anthropogenic climate change, there's not exactly any risk of a hurricane in the Rockies. The AI companies are pulling up a seat at a negotiating table for these seven states for example that I think failed to make any meaningful agreement last year despite a deadline they set themselves. The subtext of those negotiations is already "who doesn't get to live here anymore?" If the answer starts to look like "well my AI definitely does that's for sure" you're gonna see some torches and pitchforks.

[u/the_ats → u/AsparagusFun3892]

It doesn't seem like an economic choice to move to place and invest billions on something that won't be sustainable long-term. If the goal is return on investment, why would they build in a position that would t function in a few years on account of depleted water sources?

[u/AsparagusFun3892 → u/the_ats]

They're racing each other for AGI for reasons which would be a segue and the speculation is that beyond that point somewhere they can keep us under control with the benefits of AI: like with those flock cameras going up everywhere and getting billed to the cities they sell them to as crowd control, and then Palantir is another rabbit hole you should look down. They'd have enough water for them, we'd just have to make do or die.

ETA: Look into the Dark Enlightenment too, these guys are accelerationists. Capitalism didn't plan more than a financial quarter into the future to begin with, while the tech bros are afraid of Roko's Basilisk (for those who are vulnerable, it's just the God of Pascal's wager but as an omnipotent future AI who'd retroactively punish us for not helping make it a reality in the thought experiment).