Opinion: New Data Centers Won't Be Draining Us Dry
This Wall Street Journal opinion piece refutes Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal for a federal moratorium on data center construction, arguing that halting innovation would merely shift investment to competitors like China. The author contends that while data centers do consume water for cooling and indirectly through electricity generation, the scale is manageable compared to other national issues, such as the over two trillion gallons of water lost annually to leaky pipes. Citing 2023 figures, the article notes that American data centers used 17 billion gallons directly for cooling and 211 billion gallons indirectly via power generation. The piece concludes that freezing AI infrastructure development is an ineffective strategy that ignores the broader context of water usage and economic competition.
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Opinion: New Data Centers Won't Be Draining Us Dry
This Wall Street Journal opinion piece refutes Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal for a federal moratorium on data center construction, arguing that halting innovation would merely shift investment to competitors like China. The author contends that while data centers do consume water for cooling and indirectly through electricity generation, the scale is manageable compared to other national issues, such as the over two trillion gallons of water lost annually to leaky pipes. Citing 2023 figures, the article notes that American data centers used 17 billion gallons directly for cooling and 211 billion gallons indirectly via power generation. The piece concludes that freezing AI infrastructure development is an ineffective strategy that ignores the broader context of water usage and economic competition.
Technology - WSJ.com