Are data centers draining Arizona's water?

X ^ | 09/21/F2026 | Project 48

[SmokingJoe]

Are data centers draining Arizona's water?

Today, Project 48 officially launches a public information campaign to take on that question and the bigger debate over Arizona's growth.

We're putting the facts where Arizonans can see them: on digital billboards across the Valley, online, and in your hands.

Arizona has added millions of people and built a $600 billion economy while using less water statewide than it did in 1957.

Data centers account for less than 1% of Arizona's total water use. Explore the research, see our sources, and send us the data center questions you want answered:

🔗 project48az.com/datacenters 📱 Call or text: (602) 905-8423 ✉️ info@project48az.com

Pro-Facts. Pro-Growth. Pro-Arizona.

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: ai; arizona; datacenters; no

[SmokingJoe]

FACTS vs far left nonsense from Bernie Sanders and his crazy gang.

[Libloather]

The dark town that built a giant mirror to deflect the Sun

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170314-the-town-that-built-a-mirror-to-catch-the-sun

[frank ballenger]

Could someone more knowledgeable than I (lots of you) help me find which is true:

1) Data centers cause big use of water and the local region has to give it up, causing shortages and higher water bills to residents.

2) Sen. Ted Cruz said: Older data centers use a lot of water but many new ones being built have closed loop water systems that use the same water inside them.

[sjmjax]

That’s been a big question in my mind ever since this controversy began.

Why aren’t they using a closed loop cooling system?

[Bob434]

Are they gonna risk being sued out of existence for lying about, and depleting a natural source like water? Not likely! The ,eft are fear mongering. Go ask California about water depletion when the fires ripped through and water dried up because of mismanagement. They shou,d be sued for not being lrepared enough to protect the towns that were devastated by fires while their mayor or whztever she was partied over seas. Dems are just fine with her massive mismanagement! How many houses have been rebui,t after she promised to “speed through approvals” ?

Anyway, yeah, facts are NOT liberals strong points

[Jonty30]

Even if it was, that would simply be an engineering problems. They just have to design a system that allows aquifers to replenish themselves.

[SecondAmendment]

AI datacetnteers use 10x more power than non-ai: https://techplustrends.com/power-requirements-ai-data-centers/

[ansel12]

1% is a lot, what are we getting out of them for that, and since it is Arizona, why Arizona? Why deserts?

[central_va]

You spout Democrat talking pointed.

[central_va]

The new DCs use as much water as a golf course.

[chopperk]

Ca. is draining Az. water supply. Nuke desalinization plants should have been operational and a massive underground pipeline with pumping stations should have been constructed and operational to transport water from the Great Lakes to the Colorado River. Instead the Ca. dems sat on their hands waiting for someone else to save them.

[Zathras]

Nope!
High Tech companies didn’t become successful by being stupid.
They run them thru cooling towers and then back into the aquifer.
Intel has been doing this since the 80’s

[monkeyshine]

Whatever the case may be, the 30,000 foot view is simply that we deliberately mismanage and sabotage our own resources. We are surrounded by water. The only thing causing drought is the refusal to build more desalination plants, or, water pipelines/aqueducts. We do it to ourselves, on purpose, in the name of Gaia, completely omitting the fact that we humans are part of mother earth/nature too. Oh, but no we humans are the oppressor in this equation. The fish species are more important.

We do the same with oil and gas and plenty of other things. Nuclear could give us virtually free electric power. Solar almost does - during the day in the southwest we get 300 days of sunshine and there is so much solar that Edison literally dumps it off. It could be used to subsidize industrial costs but there is no profit for Edison if they cut daytime rates for industry. So all those empty homes using no power but generating lots of power just go to waste.

And even the simplest things we sabotage. That 125,000 metric tons of water in the Palisades that they drained before the fires. Why? Because it was possibly not potable. But instead of turning off the valves that feed homes and leaving open the valves that feed fire hydrants they just drained the entire thing... or... it was engineered poorly such that they built it so that it could only be used for one purpose (drinking water) and there was no other way to divert the water to the fire hydrants. Either way - we are governed by idiots who don’t know and don’t care.

[monkeyshine]

Bingo.

[TexasFreeper2009]

so much bs

a golf course uses more water

[TexasFreeper2009]

Golf course water usage is roughly 24-30 times more than data centers

[Theoria]

There is always a trade off, you can't escape equivilent exchange or thermodynamics.

The water use is compensated by higher electricity usage, or some other equivalence.

[SmokingJoe]

“AI datacetnteers use 10x more power than non-ai”

Grok:

False.

AI data centers (or AI-focused facilities/racks) do not use 10 times more power overall than non-AI (traditional) data centers. Aggregate global figures show the opposite or a closer balance so far, though AI facilities have much higher power density per rack or per square foot, and their share of total data center electricity is rising rapidly.Aggregate electricity useAccording to International Energy Agency (IEA) data (around 2025 figures referenced in 2026 analyses), total data center electricity consumption was roughly 415–485 TWh globally. Non-AI data centers accounted for about two-thirds, and AI-focused ones the remaining third. AI's share of world electricity was estimated at around 0.5%.

ourworldindata.org

Mainstream/traditional compute still dominates overall data center energy use in many assessments (often cited as 70–90% recently, with AI at 10–30% and growing). AI is the main driver of growth, with projections that AI-focused consumption will roughly triple or more by 2030 while total data center demand roughly doubles.

hpe.com

Power density (where the big difference is)AI racks/servers are far more power-hungry:Traditional data center racks: typically 5–15 kW (sometimes cited as 5–10 kW).
AI/GPU racks: commonly 40–80+ kW today, with advanced configurations (e.g., dense NVIDIA setups) reaching 100–130+ kW or higher (some next-gen designs hundreds of kW). This is often 5–10× (or more) the density of traditional racks.

red-eng.com

Some industry commentary refers to a “10x challenge” for AI factories in terms of energy, heat, and complexity relative to traditional data centers—mainly reflecting this higher density, sustained high utilization, and cooling needs rather than total facility power being uniformly 10× higher.

wired.com

Other notesIndividual AI hyperscale facilities can be very large (100+ MW, with some planned in the hundreds of MW to GW scale), comparable to or larger than many traditional ones, but total AI capacity is still smaller than the existing non-AI base.
Cooling is a bigger factor for AI due to heat from dense GPUs (often requiring liquid cooling instead of air).
Chips in AI servers can draw 2–4× (or more) the power of traditional counterparts under load.

In short: AI data centers are significantly more power-dense and are driving most of the growth in data center electricity demand, but the blanket claim that they use 10× more power than non-AI ones is not accurate on a total-consumption basis.

[SmokingJoe]

It isn’t.
Golf uses 2%.

Grok:

Approximately 2% of Arizona’s total (statewide) water use goes to golf course irrigation.This figure is widely cited by industry analyses (e.g., Rounds Consulting Group / Arizona Alliance for Golf studies based on 2021 data and earlier USGS/ADWR figures), recent articles, and public statements.

For context: Agriculture/crop irrigation accounts for roughly 74%.
Public supply (municipal/residential) is around 20–21%.
Industrial and other uses make up the rest.

[Veto!]

Elon is highly intelligent. Perhaps he’ll find a way to turn HT+0 into water.

Not quite sure whether to take this seriously or duck flying paperweights.