Microsoft’s massive new AI data center uses a small Arizona desert town’s water supply and edits its exact usage from the town’s documents.
The 279-acre campus in Goodyear will use an estimated 56 million gallons of water a year when complete — as much as 670 families need for a year, according to a report in Atlantic Ocean.
The factory opened in 2021 with two buildings and plans for a third, designed for use by Microsoft and the heavily Microsoft-funded OpenAI.
Running AI requires huge amounts of electricity, which in turn generates heat and requires water to cool the servers.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told The Atlantic, “We will have to make tough choices in the near future to ensure our state is protected for future generations.”
The data center is located on a 279-acre site on the outskirts of the desert city of Goodyear, Arizona
According to The Atlantic, it is primarily designed for use by OpenAI, which Microsoft heavily funds
The state has dealt with extreme weather, drought and high temperatures over the past few years.
Last summer was Phoenix’s hottest on record, with 55 days of temperatures above 110 degrees, stretching the grid to the maximum.
It was exacerbated by the worst drought the region has experienced in 1,000 years, with the Colorado River, which supplies drinking water and hydroelectric power, churning.
Factories and facilities with high demand further strain the water supply.
Attorney General Kris Mayes told the Atlantic: ‘Allowing another data center to come to our state is an easy but stupid decision in many cases.’
According to The Atlantic, Microsoft has refused to provide the exact figures for its Goodyear center’s water consumption.
They allegedly redacted exact numbers in city records and said it was ‘proprietary’ information.
But they gave an estimate, saying it will use 56 million gallons of water a year once the third building is complete.
It’s not just an Arizona problem, researchers at UC Riverside estimated last year that global AI demand could cause data centers to use up to 1.7 trillion gallons of fresh water by 2027.
Microsoft says they are constantly striving to improve the sustainability of their data centers and to be “good neighbors.”
Barbara Chappell, Goodyear’s director of water supply, told the outlet that they are not concerned at all and have a good relationship with Microsoft.
But a former Microsoft employee told The Atlantic that they “were lazy” and said there was much more they could do.
DailyMail.com has contacted Microsoft for comment.
AI and cloud computing data centers not only pose a problem for water, they also require huge amounts of electricity.
Recent figures suggest parts of the US are at risk of blackouts with artificial intelligence data centers and cryptocurrency mining doubling projected energy demand over the coming years.
Without intervention, the already ailing national power grid will be pushed to its limits by skyrocketing demand, fueled by rapid innovations in artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and clean energy initiatives, all of which require massive amounts of power.
In a speech at Davos last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: “We still don’t appreciate the energy needs of this technology, there’s no way to get there without a breakthrough.”
The facility will consume as much water as 670 families each year
The expected demand for electricity over the next nine years has more than doubled compared to last year
Projections for electricity demand over the next nine years have more than doubled from 221,000 gigawatt-hours last year to 564,000 gigawatt-hours this year, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
The increase is mainly driven by developments in AI, cloud computing and cryptocurrency mining, all of which require large data centers, which in turn consume huge amounts of power.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that global ‘electricity consumption from data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) and the cryptocurrency sector could double by 2026’.
By 2026, they say, the energy needs of global data centers will equal that of all of Japan.
There are currently an estimated 2,700 data centers in the US, according to the IEA, which consumed over four percent of the nation’s electricity by 2022.
They predict that in 2026 their consumption will increase to six percent.