Concern the UK’s AI ambitions could lead to water shortages

Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to make the UK a “world chief” in Synthetic Intelligence (AI) may put already stretched provides of consuming water below pressure, trade sources have advised the BBC.

The enormous information centres wanted to energy AI can require giant portions of water to stop them from overheating.

The tech trade says it’s growing extra environment friendly cooling programs that use much less water.

However the division for science, innovation and expertise stated in a press release it recognised the crops “face sustainability challenges”.

The federal government has dedicated to the development of a number of information centres across the nation in an effort to kick begin financial progress.

Ministers insist the notoriously power-hungry server farms will probably be given precedence entry to the electrical energy grid.

Questions have been raised concerning the influence this may need on the federal government’s plans for clear power manufacturing by 2030.

However much less consideration has been given to the influence information centres may have on the availability of contemporary, drinkable water to houses and companies.

Elements of the UK, within the south particularly, are already below menace of water shortages due to local weather change and inhabitants progress.

The federal government is backing plans for 9 new reservoirs to ease the chance of rationing and hosepipe bans throughout droughts.

However a few of these are in areas the place new information centres are set to be constructed.

The primary of the federal government’s “AI progress zones” will probably be in Culham, Oxfordshire, on the UK Atomic Vitality Authority’s campus – seven miles from the location of a deliberate new reservoir at Abingdon.

The 4.5 sq mile (7 sq km) reservoir will provide clients within the Thames Valley, London and Hampshire. It’s not recognized how a lot water the huge new information centres now deliberate close by may take from it.

The BBC understands Thames Water has been speaking to the federal government concerning the problem of water demand in relation to information centres and the way it may be mitigated.

In a brand new report, the Royal Academy of Engineering calls on the federal government to make sure tech firms precisely report how a lot power and water their information centres are utilizing.

It additionally requires environmental sustainability necessities for all information centres, together with lowering the usage of consuming water, transferring to zero use for cooling.

With out such motion, warns one of many report’s authors, Prof Tom Rodden, “we face an actual danger that our growth, deployment and use of AI may do irreparable injury to the surroundings”.

The tech trade tends to be cagey about water consumption. Most UK information centres contacted for this text didn’t reply to our inquiries.

Information centres use contemporary, mains water, slightly than floor water, in order that the pipes, pumps and warmth exchangers used to chill racks of servers don’t get clogged up with contaminants.

The quantity used can fluctuate significantly relying on numerous elements together with the encircling surroundings; websites in colder, wetter elements of the world are likely to require much less.

Dr Venkatesh Uddameri, a Texas-based skilled in water assets administration, says a typical information centre can use between 11 million and 19 million litres of water per day, roughly the identical as a city of 30,000 to 50,000 folks.

His extensively quoted calculations are primarily based on arid, or semi arid, climates and don’t take into consideration current effectivity enhancements or developments in AI.

Microsoft’s world water use soared by 34% whereas it was growing its preliminary AI instruments, and an information centre cluster in Iowa used 6% of the district’s water provide in a single month in the course of the coaching of OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Local resistance to data centres is growing around the world, significantly in areas the place water is scarce.

In Chile, Google stopped constructing an information centre following considerations about its water use, and it redesigned the cooling system at one other in Uruguay following native protests.

Within the UK, Thames Water has warned information centres they might face restrictions on use throughout heatwaves.

In 2022, the corporate stated it might evaluation information centres’ water use because it ready to introduce a hosepipe ban throughout a summer time draught.

However Foxglove, a bunch of campaigning legal professionals, discovered proof from Thames Water’s technique paperwork the next 12 months that the agency nonetheless didn’t seem to know the way a lot water its current information centre clients have been utilizing.

Thames Water declined to remark. It signposted its current five-year plan, which has been authorised by the federal government.

This states that it has no authorized obligation to service companies, and might select to limit or refuse water to industrial clients; however this was written earlier than the federal government designated data centres as Critical National Infrastructure, that means they are going to face fewer planning restrictions.

Thames Water filed an objection to a planning utility for a brand new information centre in a cluster in Slough, close to Studying, in 2021.

However different proposals within the space have since succeeded: for instance in August 2024 the agency Yondr introduced that it might be constructing its third information centre campus there.

Foxglove CEO Martha Darkish stated: “The federal government should urgently clarify how its plans for brand new information centres won’t threaten our long-term provides of consuming water.”

A authorities spokesperson stated: “We recognise that information centres face sustainability challenges comparable to power calls for and water use – that is why AI Development Zones are designed to draw funding in areas the place current power and water infrastructure is already in place.”

As well as, current adjustments made by the water regulator Ofwat would “unlock £104bn of spending by water firms” within the subsequent 5 years.

The info centre trade argues that fashionable websites are already extra environment friendly. Various cooling strategies which don’t require a lot water, comparable to free air cooling and dry cooling, are evolving.

Closed-loop cooling, which includes reusing water, will probably be deployed in Microsoft’s new information centres in Phoenix and Wisconsin.

Aaron Binckley, vice chairman of sustainability at Digital Realty, acknowledged criticism round information centres’ water utilization however claimed that the sector was making “important strides”.

His firm, which has 300 information centres worldwide, is trialling a brand new AI device which analyses operational information and identifies water-saving measures. He says it’s predicted to preserve practically 4m litres of water per 12 months.

Clearly, that’s at present an expectation slightly than a actuality, however Mr Binckley says it proves that “AI can drive sustainability in addition to technological progress”.

In 2024 the Environment Agency wrote in a blog that by 2050, England alone would wish an additional 5 billion litres of water day by day – it says that is the equal of two million wheelie bins-full – simply to serve the inhabitants.

However the regulator now wants extra information to be able to consider new information centres’ future wants.

In the interim, it’s urging information centres to forecast and plan their water consumption – and to discover their very own sources of water, comparable to water reuse.

“Assembly the elevated water demand isn’t just for the water trade to unravel,” says a supply.