Short showers for citizens, entire lakes for artificial intelligence: the invisible war of water in Texas

Under the relentless sun of a summer marked by drought, in Texas thousands of families receive the same message from the municipalities: reduce showers, give up washing the car, limiting the use of drinking water. But while citizens deal with the tanks, just further gigantic data centers require, as a waterproof, millions of liters every day to cool the servers that feed artificial intelligence.

According to an investigation published by The Austin Chronicle in late July, only between 2023 and 2024 the data centers of Microsoft and the American army in the San Antonio area consumed a total of 463 million gallons of water: enough to cover the needs of tens of thousands of families. A contradiction that weighs as an invisible threat on the state future of the state.

The shadow of the Stargate project

The most striking case is the “Stargate Campus” of skilles, presented as the largest data center ever built. The investment, estimated at 500 billion dollars and promoted by Openai, Oracle and Softbank with the political support of Donald Trump, is destined to host decisive infrastructures for the IA. But the dimensions are such as to worry environmentalists and local communities.

“People don’t think of data centers as large water consumers, but they are all right,” explained Robert Mace, director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. “Once that water evaporates, it is lost forever.”

The hidden thirst for the servers

The mechanism is simple: servers generate continuous heat and must be cooled with evaporative systems that require huge quantities of water. A part is reused, but most vanish in the air. According to the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), an average data center consumes about 300,000 gallons per day, the equivalent of a thousand homes. The largest structures can reach 4.5 million daily gallons.

The projections are disturbing: in 2025 the Texan data centers will consume 49 billion gallons, intended to rise to almost 400 billion by 2030, equal to 7% of the entire state water consumption (Techie + gamers).

“These centers arise in areas already stressed from a water point of view, without consultation obligations with local communities,” said Margaret Cook, Houston Advanced Research Center analyst.

Promises and skepticisms

Microsoft, among the protagonists of the race, has promised to become “positive water” by 2030, restoring more water than they consume. However, most of the water restoration projects focuses away from the areas affected by scarcity. “We must ask ourselves what really means ‘positive toilets’ if huge systems are built in areas where water is already scarce,” Cook still said.

Many municipalities Texan discover the existence of new data centers only to works started, often masked by convenient companies or internal codes. The lack of transparency feeds diffidence. Meanwhile, the authorities have approved laws to limit energy consumption in emergency, but no specific rule regulates the use of water.

The risk, the experts warn, is that communities are consuming the water already intended for future generations today. “It’s like gambling with water reserves,” Cook still commented on The Austin Chronicle.

A challenge still without rules

The rapid growth of the data centers in Texas proceeds faster than the institutions that should regulate their impact. While the state Senate has approved a law that allows you to cut electricity to the most energetic structures during emergencies, no analogous provision concerns water, reads the Economic Times.

The result is that the official water plans, such as the one drawn up every five years by the Texas Water Development Board, do not yet take into account these consumption: in the next update, expected only for 2027, the data centers do not fall within the projections. According to the Houston Advanced Research Center, this means that the communities that today authorize new buildings risk “playing” the funds and future water shares already intended for the population.

In some areas, such as the corridor between Austin and San Antonio, dozens of new plants are already under construction. If the Harc estimates are confirmed, in 2030 the data centers will consume almost 400 billion gallons per year, equal to 6.6% of the total use of state water. A share that could redefine resources distribution priorities in a constant demographic growth and still marked by chronic droughts.

In the absence of transparency and clear rules, the knot is not only environmental but also political: how much water can afford to allocate Texas to technology, and how much will have to reserve for its communities?

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