Proposed "Hyperscale" Data Center Wants 1/3 Of AL Water Utility's Capacity; Process Fogged By NDAs

[hatrack]

Developers of a proposed hyperscale data center may find themselves lacking a resource essential for the operation of what would be one of the largest such facilities in the United States: water. Public documents obtained by Inside Climate News reveal that the Warrior River Water Authority, the utility that serves the area where the 4.5 million-square-foot facility is proposed to be located, has said that it could not provide the requested water flow of 2 million gallons per day without “significant upgrades to the existing water system.”

“Warrior River Water Authority has existing mains along Rock Mountain Lake Road where water service can be provided but not at the requested demand,” said a letter from the utility to the engineering firm the developer hired.

EDIT

Although some improvements could be completed relatively quickly, those needed to supply 2 million gallons of water a day will take longer, the letter said: “Due to the large volume of usage requested by this project, agreements will be needed to assure the usage will match this commitment and the Authority’s investment in additional infrastructure.”

Developers have refused to disclose an end user for the proposed data center, but the scale of the project leaves only a few large technology companies as realistic customers, including Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Google already operates a data center in Jackson County, Alabama. According to the company’s 2025 environmental report, that facility consumes more than 182 million gallons of water per day.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12072025/bessemer-alabama-water-utility-data-center-upgrades/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. 182 million gallons of water per day.

There is the end of civilization. There will be no water remaining for people. Assume it's used for cooling.

These facilities should be located near ocean access and draw their water from that source.

[Finishline42]

3. Not to minimalize the water usage but

That looks like how much is being used yearly.

Data centers need a lot of water to cool down their computer servers that generate a lot of heat and cooling them down is essential to maintain their performance. A lot of water is used in evaporative cooling systems, chiller plants and humidification to maintain the temperature levels of servers in data centers, but it is also increasing the water shortage problems. Google’s 2024 Environment Report talks about how much their data centers are consuming water in America and which data centers are consuming the most water.

According to that report, the data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa consumed 980 million gallons of water in 2023, which is the most water consumption by any data center in Google’s report. Followed by Council Bluffs is Mayes County, Oklahoma which consumed 815 million gallons of water in 2023. The data center in Berkeley County, South Carolina was the third thirstiest data center with 763 million gallons of water in 2023. Other thirstiest data centers in the top five were Douglas County, Georgia and Lenoir, North Carolina which consumed 346 million gallons and 337 million gallons of water respectively in 2023.

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2025/02/which-american-google-data-centers-had.html

[purple_haze]

2. El Capitan has 11,039,616 cores

https://top500.org/lists/top500/2025/06/


Systems like this have been around for decades. They also use massive amounts of power and water.