“We are just making these reports pretty much in the dark — since there’s almost zero information,” said Shaolei Ren, an AI researcher at UC Riverside and co-author of the report. “We have extremely little information about data centers in California.”
CalMatters
Data centers are putting new strain on California's grid. Here's the best estimate yet
California’s data centers have doubled their use of electricity and demand for water , and are polluting more, even as lawmakers stall on oversight.
 Big Tech wants to know absolutely everything about us. It works incredibly hard so that we know as little as possible about them
"The availability of freshwater is already a concern globally. By 2030, demand for freshwater will outstrip supply by 40% — which will mean those reliant on water will become increasingly dependent on the extraction of non-renewable or unreliable water sources. In essence, the data centers needed to power the AI revolution are already drinking from a drying tap. Some tech accelerationists argue that AI isn’t the cause of this crisis."
Tech Policy Press
Artificial Intelligence, Water Consumption and the Trillion-Radish Conundrum | TechPolicy.Press
The AI sector, which uses as much water as Norway and Sweden combined, is a ticking time bomb, writes Henry Throp.
"The water crisis is really a crisis of groundwater. 99% of freshwater is groundwater, and groundwater supplies 40% of our food, and 70% of irrigation, but many major aquifers are already overdrawn. The Ogallala, which grows a sixth of the world’s grain, could be largely unusable within decades."
The big groundwater crisis - food, water, pollution, and social unrest : John Cherry interview Part I
groundwater supplies our freshwater, water crisis is based in a groundwater crisis, virtual water hides the groundwater crisis
 The Growth Death Cult will kill us all, and Big Tech want more and more water. All for super greedy AI. Time to resist!
ChatGPT Now Linked to Way More Deaths Than the Caffeinated Lemonade That Panera Pulled Off the Market in Disgrace "As of last week, ChatGPT maker OpenAI is facing a total of eight distinct lawsuits alleging that extensive use of its flagship chatbot inflicted emotional and psychological harm to users, resulting in mental breakdowns, financial instability, alienation from loved ones, and — in five cases — death by suicide."
Futurism
ChatGPT Now Linked to Way More Deaths Than the Caffeinated Lemonade That Panera Pulled Off the Market in Disgrace
ChatGPT has been publicly linked to at least eight deaths. OpenAI has announced no plans to take it off the market.
"A sharp increase in e-waste has accompanied the surge in electronic equipment. In 2022, 62 million tons of e-waste was produced globally. Canada’s e-waste tripled between 2000 and 2019 and is expected to reach 1.2 billion kilograms by 2030. These statistics demonstrate an urgent environmental crisis that demands new ways of thinking and educating future generations."
The Conversation
To tackle e-waste, teach kids to be responsible consumers
Schools should provide students with the know-how to challenge our throw-away culture and empower them to become conscious consumers.
Increasingly Big Tech will compete with food for water. Big Tech will win. The people who run Big Tech would let half the world die of thirst and see that as merely the price of progress, innovation "Rice farmers in the south were forced to stop planting rice for three years in a row, from 2021 to 2023. “Farmers say they are being sacrificed for [the] semiconductor industry, and I think that’s a fair assessment,” said Po-Jen Hsu."
Truthdig
The Ecological Cost of AI Is Much Higher Than You Think - Truthdig
As the demands of AI grow, each generation of microchips requires more energy, minerals and water to produce, driving a ruinous cycle.
AI is devouring life on earth, and it's only getting started. And for what? A tech bro scam "By 2030, the current rate of AI growth would annually put 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the emissions equivalent of adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roadways. It would also drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year—equal to the annual household water usage of 6 to 10 million Americans." https://phys.org/news/2025-11-ai-centers-strain-energy-resources.html
AI power use forecast finds the industry far off track to net zero Several large tech firms that are active in AI have set goals to hit net zero by 2030, but a new forecast of the energy and water required to run large data centres shows they’re unlikely to meet those targets
New Scientist
AI power use forecast finds the industry far off track to net zero
Several large tech firms that are active in AI have set goals to hit net zero by 2030, but a new forecast of the energy and water required to run l...
 Net Zero was always a joke to Big Tech. They were never serious and never will be. Their growth depends on environmental destruction.
"From Chile and Mexico to Georgia in the US and Scotland, serious concerns have been raised around data centres guzzling excess water and consuming vast amounts of energy at the cost of local communities. In an energy starved, water-scarce India, these challenges are even more accentuated. According to the World Bank, India has 18% of the world's population, but only 4% of its water resources, making it among the most water-stressed countries in the world."
Google, Meta, Amazon: India’s data centre boom confronts a water challenge
Energy hungry, water-guzzling data centres could affect India's decarbonisation plans, say experts.
"The latest version of Elon Musk’s Grok AI model cost nearly $500 million to train and consumed enough energy, water, and resources to match the needs of an entire small city." "The carbon footprint of training Grok 4 reached 154,000 tons of CO₂, comparable to what a commercial Boeing airplane emits over three years of flights. Cooling the data centers and running power systems took 754 million liters of water—enough to fill around 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools."
Dagens.com
Elon Musk’s Grok AI used city-scale energy and water to train
The latest version of Elon Musk’s Grok AI model cost nearly $500 million to train and consumed enough energy, water, and resources to match the n...