"Amazon’s three proposed new datacentres in the Aragon region of northern Spain, each next to an existing Amazon datacentre are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, roughly enough to irrigate 233 hectares of corn, one of the region’s main crops.
In practice, the water usage will be even higher as that figure doesn’t take into account water used to generate the electricity that will power the new installations, said Aaron Wemhoff, an energy efficiency specialist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
Between them, Amazon’s new datacentres in the Aragon region are predicted to use more electricity than the entire region currently consumes. Meanwhile, Amazon in December asked the regional government for permission to increase water consumption at its three existing datacentres by 48%.
Opponents have accused the company of being undemocratic by trying to rush through its application over the Christmas period. More water is needed because “climate change will lead to an increase in global temperatures and the frequency of extreme weather events, including heat waves”, Amazon wrote in its application."

Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas >

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water

#YourCloudIsDryingMyRiver #AI #datacentres #Amazon #Google #Meta

Erittäin kiinnostava juttu julkisista arkistoista, digitaalisen tiedon säilyvyydestä/säilymättömyydestä ja - tietenkin - datakeskuksista.
/ A very interesting read on public records, the (im)permanence of digital knowledge and - of course - data centres.
https://www.thedial.world/articles/news/issue-13/ireland-data-center-energy-historical-memory

#arkistot #digitointi #datakeskukset #PublicRecords #digitization #DataCentres

"Amazon’s new datacentres in the Aragon region are predicted to use more #electricity than the entire region currently consumes. Meanwhile, Amazon in December asked the regional government for permission to increase water consumption at its three existing #datacentres by 48%."

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water #DataCenters #water #environment #BigTech #Amazon #Google #Microsoft

« Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating #datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s #driest areas and are building many more.
With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology giants are planning #hundreds of datacentres in the US and across the #globe, with a potentially huge #impact on populations already living with water #scarcity. »


Also:Trump’s fossil-fuel donors to profit from data-center boom

Efforts by the largest online retailer to mitigate its water use have sparked opposition from inside the company, with one sustainability expert warning that its plans are “not ethical”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water

Revealed: Big tech’s new #datacentres will take #water from the world’s driest areas
#Amazon, #Google and #Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents

Elon #Musk ’s xAI powering its facility in Memphis with ‘illegal’ generators

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water

#Water #ClimateChange #GenAI #DataCentres
if you stop using it, they will stop making it

🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water