When Data Scarcity, Water Scarcity, and Data Center Development Meet

Irina Raicu is the director of the Internet Ethics program (@IEthics) at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Views are her own.

The environmental impact of data centers, and in particular of the hyperscale data centers rapidly being built around the U.S. (and around the world) for the ongoing training and deployment of AI models, has become a topic of public contention.

Last month, the nonprofit Next 10 published a research report co-authored by Santa Clara University professor Iris Stewart-Frey, myself, and several Santa Clara students, assessing the intersection of data center development, water access, and environmental justice in California. As we noted in the report’s summary, in our state

limited water resources are divided among competing urban, agricultural, and ecological uses through arguably the most extensive and complex water infrastructure system in the world, intersecting with an intricate web of water systems, water agencies, rights and regulations. … The water requirements associated with data center development and operation in the state add to the challenge. … Recent siting of data centers in socio-economically challenged and ethnically diverse communities raises equity concerns… while public oversight and environmental review are often limited.

You can now access the full report (which includes an Ethical Analysis appendix applying the six ethical lenses from the Center’s “Framework for Ethical Decision Making”), or watch the recording of a recent webinar in which Prof. Stewart-Frey and I discussed our research process, key findings, and resulting recommendations.

Growing public opposition to data center development has blocked some anticipated projects (more than 75 of them, according to a recent count). Moreover, Politico argues, the controversy has “also become a rogue element in the races that will decide which party controls the House: The majority of competitive districts — 40 out of 69 — have data centers either planned or under construction.”

Opponents of data center construction are often met by claims that they are uninformed—but the organizations in the best position to accurately inform us all about the water and energy consumption, as well as about the other public health implications of data center deployment, have only lately been releasing data that researchers have long been calling for. And the disclosures are still not at the level of granularity required for informed decision-making: cumulative numbers can cover up significant negative impacts of particular projects on particular communities. The new report focuses on five case studies as one way to highlight this reality, as well as the environmental justice implications of the data center boom.

When information scarcity and water scarcity meet, oversimplifications are likely to lead to worse outcomes for both opponents and proponents of data center development. Our report highlights the complexities of data center siting in California, and offers some suggestions for responding to them.

Image: Sinem Görücü / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/