Elon Musk has backed NVIDIA’s declare that knowledge heart water use is way smaller than critics recommend.
Knowledge facilities face rising scrutiny over how a lot water and electrical energy they devour. NVIDIA says its newest cooling methods can almost erase the water that older amenities lose to evaporation.
What NVIDIA Claims About Knowledge Heart Water Use
NVIDIA’s put up cited a March 2026 estimate from the Manhattan Institute that knowledge facilities use roughly 0.2% of U.S. freshwater, most of it not directly by means of energy era.
The corporate stated its 45-degree Celsius liquid cooling lets AI factories in cool climates run on dry coolers fairly than evaporative towers.
That shift can reduce facility cooling water from about 2.6 million gallons per megawatt every year to close zero.
NVIDIA made the identical case in 2025, claiming its Blackwell methods have been 300 instances extra water environment friendly than air cooling.
As a result of cooling can attain 40% of a knowledge heart’s electrical energy, the design additionally trims energy prices. Comparable trade-offs now form the worldwide AI knowledge heart race.
Why Elon Musk’s Endorsement Issues
Musk, who runs massive NVIDIA-powered clusters by means of xAI, has repeatedly praised NVIDIA’s newest chips because the spine of his AI tasks.
His endorsement helps NVIDIA’s push towards the view that AI development drains native water provides. The corporate describes its system as a closed loop that recirculates coolant as an alternative of consuming recent water.
“The NVIDIA DSX reference design for AI factories has zero water consumption … we’ve got eradicated large quantities of energy utilization and just about all water utilization,” Ali Heydari, director of knowledge heart cooling and infrastructure at NVIDIA
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The Case for Warning
The nationwide determine hides the element. NVIDIA’s near-zero declare covers direct cooling, the smaller a part of the footprint.
U.S. knowledge facilities used about 17.4 billion gallons of water instantly in 2023, a Berkeley Lab report discovered, plus one other 211 billion gallons not directly by means of the electrical energy they drew.
That oblique share climbs as AI scales, and direct use alone is projected to achieve 38 to 73 billion gallons by 2028.
Dry coolers additionally rely upon local weather, working finest in cool areas and fewer properly in sizzling, dry states.
The pressure is seen at Musk’s personal xAI. Its Memphis Colossus web site has drawn roughly 1.3 million gallons of consuming water a day from the native aquifer and ran dozens of gasoline generators earlier than securing permits, prompting a knowledge heart air pollution lawsuit and neighborhood appeals.
How regulators and water-stressed areas reply might determine whether or not effectivity positive aspects maintain tempo with the business’s growth and the broader contest for AI capital.
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