Join Puck to listen to this article
Earlier this summer, as OpenAI, Google, Meta, and xAI announced another $100 billion of investments in data centers across the United States, I embarked on a quixotic project of my own. One of the great enduring mysteries of the A.I. boom is just how much water each of these “superclusters” consume. After all, data centers can require tens of millions of gallons per year to cool the huge numbers of G.P.U.s required to train and operate A.I. systems. And yet, information around the environmental impacts of the industry is generally closely guarded.
