AI data center experts advise farmers, residents and officials to dig for water details

With the rapid expansion of data centers in California, residents and elected leaders should focus on what they can control: Setting boundaries with developers, according to data center experts.

A panel of experts gathered for a webinar hosted by Agri-Pulse, which publishes agricultural news and updates, to understand how rural communities can limit data center impacts on local resources on Aug. 27. 

There are different types of data centers but artificial intelligence data centers require much greater amounts of energy and water, depending on how they’re cooled.

Webinar panelists did not make a distinction about types of data centers in their discussion. 

Panelist Mike Turner has significant firsthand experience with data centers as a Loudoun County, Virginia Supervisor. Loudoun County has the highest concentration of data centers in the world with about 253 AI data centers, Turner said.

Turner offered several tips:

• Require the data center developer to specify how much water it will use annually
• Understand what kind of cooling system the data center will use, for example: air-cooled, open loop water-cooled or closed loop water systems
• Determine whether the data center will use recycled or potable water
• Determine how the data center will treat its wastewater

AI data centers, which require much more power to run their graphic processing units than traditional data centers, also require advanced, water cooled systems. Air cooling is often used in traditional data centers to keep the hardware from overheating.

In Loudoun County, data centers use 10% of the county’s potable water. A majority of data centers in the county use a closed-loop system, which moves water in a continuous circuit. 

“They’ll use a lot of water to charge initially, but then they don’t use anymore for years. And I would not allow a data center in this modern environment into my community that was not on a closed-loop water system,” he said.

Proposals for two edge node data centers on the fairgrounds in Tulare and Kings counties have fired up many residents, who have attended board and city council meetings to make their opposition clear to elected officials.

The edge node AI data centers are the size of shipping containers and use closed-loop cooling systems.

Edge node AI data centers also wouldn’t require connections to municipal or community water supply, according to the developer, Global Stack USA.

Those edge node proposals have not been formally considered by the fairground boards and won’t come back up for discussion for several months.

Additionally, Turner warned that elected leaders should never sign a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, with developers or lose trust with residents. 

“I think that the public and your communities are demanding transparency,” Turner said.