{"id":9158,"date":"2026-02-25T05:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T10:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=9158"},"modified":"2026-02-26T07:08:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:08:32","slug":"ai-data-centers-pose-dangerous-strain-on-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=9158","title":{"rendered":"AI Data Centers Pose Dangerous Strain on Resources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lena Echer ’27
\nEE\u00a0<\/em>Staff Writer<\/p>\n

In the past five years, AI has become extremely mainstream as big tech companies push their products onto consumers. It has caught on thanks to the services it provides users –answering questions, organizing work, summarizing text, generating images, and so much more –but what hasn’t been focused on are its costs. The use of AI isn’t free of consequences, and its environmental impact is particularly concerning to experts and average people alike. More than ever, AI’s heavy use of water, electricity, and space are draining valuable resources and destroying the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

So how does AI hurt us and the planet? Well, AI programs aren\u2019t intangible systems that exist only on devices. They are run out of massive data centers that hold the infrastructure needed to support them. The primary infrastructure required in a data center includes computing hardware, storage space, energy sources, and cooling systems. These parts store data, train AI, and deliver it to consumers. With all this going on inside, running data centers puts a dangerous strain on resources like electricity and water, things the infrastructure needs to function.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But data centers\u2019 largest consumption isn’t their land area; it’s the amount of water and electricity they consume every day. According to scientists in an MIT study, by 2026 data centers will be the 5th largest energy consumer globally, “approaching 1050 terawatt-hours\u2026between Japan and Russia”. Think about that –data centers alone consume more energy than most countries do. Individually, they often exceed the energy consumption of nearby towns, and the impact is quickly felt by residents, who see it in their energy bills. Pew Research Center estimates that by 2030, electricity bills for Americans will have gone up 8% on average, to 25% in \u201chighest-demand markets”, due to AI’s demand for more power. This is on top of bills already increasing because of inflation and extreme weather. More power also means more CO2 emissions, since most energy comes from nonrenewable sources such as fossil fuels. Sustainable energy sources aren’t currently big enough to supply all the energy needed by data centers, so they’re forced to rely on burning fossil fuels, further polluting the environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even more terrifying is the sheer amount of water that centers use to cool their hardware. Most of us have stable access to clean drinking water, so we don’t have much incentive to think about it, but the water supply is an increasing problem in the US, thanks largely to AI. Thousands of fellow Americans cannot use the water in their homes, either because it is dirty or because it simply isn’t there anymore. According to the University of Illinois, the average person uses “132 gallons [of water] per day\u201d, but a large data center “consumes water equivalent to that of 4200\u201d. That’s 554,000 gallons of water a day consumed by <\/span>one single data center<\/span><\/i>. In one month, it’s 16,632,000 gallons. This water is being taken from communities. Residents living near data centers have reported extremely low water pressure, leaving them unable to flush toilets and run the water in their sinks and showers. Beverly Morris, a Georgia resident whose home sits next to a Meta data center, reported to the BBC that she now “hauls water in buckets\u201d to flush her toilet. Access to water should be a human right, but it is being denied by companies who have a greater interest in their own gains than in the people they are affecting.<\/span><\/p>\n

And more concerningly, Morris stated that her water has residue in it and that she cannot drink it. It is “cloudy and brown\u201d and “shouldn’t be that color”, according to a volunteer who helps monitor the health of Georgia’s waters. The people living near data centers are being put in an impossible situation – having to choose between dealing with the data centers, which often means having no safe water, or leaving entirely and uprooting their entire lives. Many stay, but bad water can poison entire communities, something Americans should be well aware of. We’ve all heard stories about Flint, Michigan, where lead pipes caused undrinkable water for years and killed some residents.<\/span><\/p>\n

It should not be acceptable to anyone that data centers can cause such harm to our country and communities with neither repercussions nor regulations. Their insatiable consumption of electricity and particularly water should be raising alarm across the nation. These resources are already strained and it is unsustainable to keep taxing them. Recently, the UN announced that the world is now in an \u201cera of water bankruptcy\u201d; a condition characterized by \u201cirreversible losses of natural water capital\u201d and \u201cinability to bounce back to historic baselines\u201d. If AI companies do not act to reduce their resource consumption, the damage to the environment and to our communities will eventually become irreversible. But it is unlikely that AI companies will regulate themselves effectively, so it is also essential that people understand the consequences of their AI usage.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo courtesy: TheHill.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lena Echer ’27 EE\u00a0Staff Writer In the past five years, AI has become extremely mainstream as big tech companies push their products onto consumers. It has caught on thanks to the services…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":9163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9165,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158\/revisions\/9165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}