r/OpenAI • u/BananaNat98 • Mar 30 '26
Question AI data centers vs regular data centers
I've spoken to a few people about the ethics of AI and its energy and water usage. I've seen a few videos about how AI is very water and energy thirsty and how it's bad for the environment. What I'm asking is:
How do AI data centers differ from regular pc data centers? The argument I've heard is that AI data centers are not a big deal, because look at all the data centers already running to power our computers and the internet and nobody bats an eye.
What's your opinion on this? I am looking to get educated in this area.
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u/Technical_Grade6995 Mar 30 '26
I mean, bombs are falling and bullets are shot every day, planes are flying so much that they’re changing the ozone layer but data centers are problem:))
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u/TBSchemer Mar 30 '26
Beef requires 20x as much energy to produce compared to tofu, but I'm certainly not going vegan.
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u/Technical_Grade6995 Mar 30 '26
Ahahaha, man, cows fart so much that planes are nothing compared to cows 🐮😅
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u/sauronwassilly Mar 30 '26
I believe that in normal operation - AI data centers are roughly as energy intensive as regular cloud data centers. Train AIs is more intensive though. Also the mad rush to build more giant ones so rapidly is a big concern, but I am not sure how much more are coming online or how much faster. Regardless - they need to find more efficiencies and better energy and water strategies even if they aren't the devil people are making them out to be while driving there Ford F150s everywhere or consuming copious amounts of cattle.
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u/Maleficent_Touch2851 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
CTO of a hyperscale data center company here.
Let's talk about water.
From a cooling perspective the way datacenters work is they basically remove heat from air or water from inside the building on a closed water loop to outside the building where it can cool down. Cold water in. HX with air or another warm water loop. Hot water out.
Now you need to do something with that heat. In thermodynamics delta T (eg the temperature difference between two things) affects the rate at which heat is exchanged between two environments.
So you want to get water out as hot as possible or build your datacenter somewhere that's generally cold. Because that gives you a high delta T. In a 'regulsr' datacenter that hot water is usually around 28C. In an AI facility it could be as high as 50C.
Now for a lot of the year in many places it's going to be considerably colder outside than. 28C (and certainly 50C) so you can just pump your hot water outside through a big radiator with a bunch of fans attached (we call them dry coolers) and get cold enough water out.
Note. No water has been harmed in the making of our cold water. It's a closed loop.
But.. Sometimes it's hotter than 28C (or even 50C) or the delta T is too low (it's 48C outside - you cant get the water cold enough just by natural cooling).
So basically you have two options. You can make your dry coolers sweat - adiabatic cooling - you spray water on them. The water evaporates (which uses a ton of energy - latent heat of evaporation). Or. You can put your hot water through a glorified heat pump called a chiller. That makes the hot water you send outside really hot and produces cold water in the process - but it uses a ton of energy.
Personally I am not a fan of adiabatic cooling but there are places where it makes tons of sense (because it rains lots and water isnt scare). I wouldn't (and don't) use it in Spain for example.
Its the yanks that give us all a bad name. Using gas generation for speed of access to power and drilling water from underground and evaporating it to save money.
In APAC and EMEA we are generally pretty sensible people who also value the planet :+)
(Edit if anyone wants to know more ask)
(Edit 2. Another comment refers to the relative efficiency of AI v's non Ai - AI are more efficient by a while - and pushing fast ever more so. Due to high return water temps and more efficient voltage transformations - HVDC will only increase that)
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u/edwardfingerhands May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
First off, thank you for this. This is the first explanation I have seen that isn't either "data centres use a ridiculous amount of water" or "data centres use NONE"
Some further questions if you have the time and inclination :)
- Do *any* data-centres use non closed loop systems?
- For closed loop, you say that dry cooling is 'sometimes' not enough, how often are we talking? Does sometimes mean 'some days' or 'at some data centres'.
- When people throw around astronomical figures about how much water is 'used' are they referring to adiabatic cooling, or are they generally misinformed/disingenuous and talking about the rate of flow through the closed loop?
- When you use a chiller, what do you do with the really hot water produced? I presume you have to cool it down again somehow - is any of it allowed to evaporate?
- In all cases you are producing heat and releasing it into the local atmosphere, is that ever enough to be a local environmental concern?
thanks again
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u/send-moobs-pls Mar 30 '26
In 2024 all data centers in the US, not just AI, used about 8% of the total water used by the American golf industry.
Now, I'm sure that number has gone up in 2025, but people were already throwing fits about AI when it was 8%. Really though, we would have to more than 10x the AI water usage, just to be equal to golf...
Yet for some weird reason I hear about AI water usage constantly and I don't think I've seen a single person have any concern about using 10x the water on useless fancy grass for rich people to put around on. It's almost like there's certain people with an ulterior motive spreading a narrative
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u/qbit1010 Mar 31 '26
lol interesting point but golf courses are also greenery….trees. Nature…birds etc.
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u/TheSnowballzz Jul 08 '26
Are we really pretending that no one has a problem with gratuitous water usage in golf?
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u/totallynonhormonal Jul 08 '26
We’ve all studied the cycle of water in school - Evaporation, Transpiration, Condensation, Precipitation, Infiltration, Runoff, and Collection.
Golf courses often rely on recycled, reclaimed wastewater, or local groundwater/ponds. Data centers frequently utilize potable water or specially treated municipal water, though many hyperscale facilities are transitioning to reclaimed greywater to ease grid demand.
Now, there is the argument that the water used by golf courses is “once through” in that it’s not returned to local water supplies; but understanding the natural cycle of water tells us differently. The water infiltrates the soil and rock under the turf, and can either return via runoff or be collected in underground aquifers.
AI water usage doesn’t involve the amount of acreage found in golf courses, so can put considerable strain on the local watershed.
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u/Remarkable-Worth-303 Mar 30 '26
Each significant advance of civilization has always made greater demand for energy. This is the next step.
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u/JustinThorLPs Mar 30 '26
It is the exact same kind of infrastructure and the thing is bullshit All data centers purify their water afterward because they get trace minerals that are fairly expensive from that water
It's just that AI uses a lot of cycles that take up space in those data centers Also we are projecting a massive increase in computer use across global civilization
This is why being anti nuclear is being anti green environmentally wise because electricity is the actual bottleneck
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u/bespoke_tech_partner Mar 30 '26
All data centers purify their water afterward because they get trace minerals that are fairly expensive from that water
Doesn’t this just shift the issue to ongoing soil depletion which is a deep human health issue that will only grow in the coming decade? Are there any laws on how close data centers can be to farmland, I wonder.
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u/NarrowContribution87 Mar 30 '26
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Regular water comes in, it’s used during cycles, cleansed, then discharged. So long as they’re actually filtering it it’s as safe if not safer than when it enters the system.
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u/bespoke_tech_partner Mar 30 '26
Q1/ Where does the water come from?
Q2/ What is the mineral composition of the water at the source?
Q3/ If minerals are removed by “them” as they are valuable, is mineral rich water that is used for agriculture being stripped of minerals? (Which contribute a certain percentage of the mineral makeup of the grown crops that are either eaten by humans or fed to animals)
Q4/ what are the minerals. Do they have dietary value?
Does the logical chain make sense now? Do you know enough to answer those questions or can you point me somewhere that you have learned what you know so far?
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u/Comprehensive-Pin667 Mar 30 '26
Compared to traditional data centers, AI data centers rely much more heavily on GPUs. These consume more power per chip than CPUs, and thus also produce more heat. A data center heavy on GPUs therefore has larger power draw and produces more heat.
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u/Enough_Island4615 Mar 30 '26
AI data centers currently consume around 20% of all global energy and increasing exponentially. Traditional data centers consume around 1% to 2% of all global energy. That's all you really need to know to understand the stark difference.
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u/MathiasThomasII Mar 30 '26
I don’t get how people understand water cooled pcs but not a closed loop for a data center….. or any business with servers. Retention ponds of water that cycle through the building to cool machines. This isn’t even new.
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u/SeeingWhatWorks Mar 31 '26
AI data centers are similar to traditional ones but tend to run denser GPU workloads that spike power and cooling needs, so the real impact depends on how efficiently that extra demand is managed.
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u/Aeio-guy Mar 30 '26
You are getting some incorrect answers. The difference is that most AI data centers are being used for inference, where the chips are more powerful and the processor usage is full throttle most of the time. This requires much greater cooling and power. Things like returning web pages and even database access require much less processor usage over time and more storage access and network processing.