[Right_Wing_Madman]

If you hate data centers as much as I do, then bamboo becomes an extremely responsible landscaping alternative!

I'm sorting through all the misinformation. According to this report, US agriculture uses 80 percent of America's freshwater, while data centers are well below 1 percent. It is likely China is a player in this anti-data center campaign, but more likely we are a victims of our own anti-capitalist stupidity. It's like we're against building factories in the 1800s.

https://nypost.com/2026/06/16/opinion/everyone-is-afraid-of-ai-data-centers-have-become-the-ultimate-scapegoat/#:~:text=It%20may%20sound%20like%20a,1%25%20of%20US%20water%20consumption.

[The Duke]

I believe many data centers actually recycle water, and those that don't send it, evaporated, into the atmostphere to return as rain.

I'm generally inclined against data centers because I'm pro-nature, but I only want to provide negatives that "hold water".

[JayGalt]

That’s a very interesting statistic. Thanks for posting.

[hopespringseternal]

It’s less about the data centers and more about the massive stupidity surrounding this mania for building them every 50 feet across the country. It’s the dot com bubble on steroids.

They are trying to build resource intensive industry in resource poor areas. Municipalities are falling for this hard, offering tax abatements and special consideration when these things don’t create many jobs and actually depress property desirability because no one wants to live near them.

To make matters worse no one realizes there are few permanent jobs so it creates a massive temporary bubble in property values and housing expenses.

Because of the mania the local governments are just spreading the enormous cost on the residents in blind faith that there will be massive benefits.

Anyone who has actually used AI knows that its actual value is far surpassed by the hype surrounding it.

[GingisK]

Like any other cooling situation, coolant will be recirculated.

[discostu]

Keep in mind 2 things:
the data centers in the report are the tip of the iceberg. That’s from cloud stuff. We’re building 10 times as many of them for AI.
And agriculture gives us food to eat. So far all AI is giving us is plagiarized nudie pics.

[ridesthemiles]

WAIT UNTIL YOU CANNOT FIND FOOD BECAUSE THE DATA CENTER GOT THE WATER-—

[rhoda_penmark]

“ It’s like we’re against building factories in the 1800s.”

You mean the factories that discharged their toxic waste and chemicals directly into the rivers and lakes of America until the 1970s and later?