Executive Summary

• Data centre water usage is widely reported on by mainstream media, with various angles depending on the media company’s underlying leanings, and it’s a common fear amongst the public that data centres are taking too much water and won’t leave enough for communities.
• AI has simultaneously driven industry growth and created bottlenecks, leaving the industry scrambling to innovate alternative solutions to keep up, especially with cooling and is responsible for the increases in water demand. So much so that by 2050, the UK is expected to be in a projected daily water deficit of nearly 5 billion litres.
• TechUK’s survey helps to dispel water-intensive myths and states their findings come to the conclusion that data centre facilities are more water-conscious, seeking innovations and alternative solutions to liquid cooling.

The topic of data centre water usage has been widely discussed, not just in the industry but also in the mainstream media, with various angles depending on the media company and its underlying leanings. But the consensus amongst the public is this: data centres are taking too much water, leaving them to wonder, as reports come piling in on the huge industry growth and infrastructure popping up left, right and centre, if there will be enough water left for communities to live on.

This article seeks to look objectively at how data centres are using water, the issues around usage, and how the industry can be more responsible.

How are data centres using water?

Largely, liquid cooling is the one area where data centres are using the most water. The current estimated water consumption of data centres is around 1.88 million metres per year, roughly 0.2% of the non-household market.

As servers operate 24/7, the hardware expels heat and so cooling methods are used to cool the servers down and prevent system failures; traditionally air cooling was the primary method for data centres, but as AI growth drives more dense workloads, air cooling can’t keep up – so operators and innovators turned to liquid cooling as it is more effective in cooling down equipment for those higher desntiy workloads.

Ultimately, the decisions made regarding cooling affect the data centre’s water and energy consumption, and AI has been a key cause of this increase in water usage. AI has driven growth and created bottlenecks in the current system, leaving the industry scrambling to innovate alternative solutions to keep up with the unprecedented growth.

The issues around water usage

According to the Environmental Agency, by 2050, the UK is expected to be in a projected daily water deficit of nearly 5 billion litres, a challenge that is exacerbated by data centre demand, population increases and climate change. Now more than ever, we need companies to take more responsibility for their water usage, including reporting and predictions around water usage.

The largest issue is the critical knowledge gap with data centres and their use of water and the lack of regulations that can help keep accountability.

The UK is at an impasse with its goal to be one of the global leaders in the AI race, because these ambitions are causing tension with its net-zero pledges and water scarcity issues.

Data centres are becoming more water-conscious

There is still a shift happening where operators are becoming more water-conscious to address water usage, scarcity and public, media and regulatory scrutiny.

TechUK conducted a survey in collaboration with the Environmental Agency of 73 data centres across England around their water usage and responsibility and found that:

• 89% of sites measure water use or deploy cooling systems that don’t need water.
• 64% use less water than a leisure centre (under 10,000 m³ each year).
• 51% of sites surveyed use waterless cooling systems.

Their findings dispel assumptions that all data centres are water-intensive right now, when actually, many facilities are taking action to deploy efficient, climate-conscious solutions.

Right now, data-driven conversations around water usage are crucial for transparency, not just for operators, regulators and policymakers but for the general public to understand how data centres are using water, innovating to reach climate goals and how they benefit the community.

At the end of the day, data centres are critical national infrastructure, the community’s digital backbone, and they’re not going away. They’re essential infrastructure, powering everything from hospitals to cloud services, financial transactions and emergency responses, and they will shift and evolve as we lean into a more digital world.