This series explores the impacts of data centers on water supply, energy use, air quality and stormwater runoff in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Data centers house the computer systems that enable internet activity and, increasingly, artificial intelligence. Northern Virginia, in the middle of the Bay watershed, is the global epicenter of these warehouse-like facilities. Their footprint is now spreading into Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Perhaps you’ve read that ChatGPT, the most prominent artificial intelligence chatbot, consumes about one plastic bottle’s worth of water for every 100-word email it generates. But, as new AI models emerge, the water consumption of the data centers that fuel it multiplies. And the water, of course, doesn’t come from a store-bought bottle.
In Northern Virginia, which is home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, the water comes from the Potomac River basin — a source that also supplies drinking water to residents before flowing to the Chesapeake Bay. Each new large AI language model that comes along now accounts for substantially more water consumption than its predecessor, and experts are predicting a future in which the water-cooling needs of AI could compete with the region’s other water needs, particularly on hot summer days…