In the small desert community of Inyokern, a developer’s plan to build an AI data center is drawing skepticism from residents and concern from officials in nearby Ridgecrest, largely because of water use in an already water-stressed area.
Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.
A new report by the think tank Next10 and Santa Clara University reveals that many generative AI data centers are not being transparent about how much water they’re using.
Data centers have been in California for a long time, and the number and size of facilities are growing to support the rapid boom of artificial intelligence. Oversight, though, has not kept pace with development.
s AI-driven demand accelerates the buildout of hyperscale data centers across the United States, California is confronting a specific and underexamined dimension of the challenge: not just how much water these facilities consume, but where they are being sited, and who bears the consequences.
