The Revere

By: Mercy Okoronkwo

 The recent increase in AI use in the USA has led to major environmental damage.

AI data centers “drink” 5 million gallons of water per day, or about 1.8 billion gallons annually: typically, the amount a town of 50,000 would consume. With the rapid rise of AI, demand has increased for the construction of data centers. These centers use 1% of all the water on Earth available for human use to cool heated servers processing AI chats, which has been applying more stress on the already limited resources on Earth. The Trump Administration fails to recognize the dangers AI data centers pose to the environment, creating an additional complication in the conflict between ensuring data centers limit their water usage and rapidly constructing new centers. In the absence of government intervention, we must pressure tech companies to acknowledge AI’s disproportionate water usage and strive to implement renewable energy alternatives.

Data centers house computers that store and process digital information. These buildings are typically the size of 17 football fields, using billions of gallons of water to cool down servers, subsequently driving up the water bills in the area. To match the increasing use of AI, there has been a greater demand for these data centers to meet growing processing needs. In 2018, data centers accounted for roughly 2% of all energy use in the USA. By 2023, that number had doubled to 4.4% and is expected to rise to 6.7 – 7.2% by 2028. The rise of AI and its data centers adds strain on the environment and its already limited natural resources, exacerbating the issue. If we cannot use renewable energy to power data centers, they will accelerate climate change, which is killing the Earth.

Data centers are being intentionally built in Southern American communities, destroying communities with facilities that pollute the local water supply. In Georgia, Beverly Morris bought a home in 2016 because of its seclusion, but a massive Meta data center was built right next to the property. Now she buys all her drinking water because her tap water has been polluted with sediments ever since the data center was constructed. The Black community has also felt the impact of billion-dollar investments into data center construction that fill their neighborhoods with commercial facilities. Black Americans are 75% more likely to live near commercial facilities that produce toxic waste, and neighborhoods that are inhabited by minorities are ideal locations for the data centers. These environmental disparities between the rural and Black communities and the rest of America, because of pollution from data centers, could potentially widen the wealth gap in the country and worsen environmental injustice in America. America is in an AI race that has allowed big tech companies to build these centers as quickly as possible, regardless of the social and environmental impacts, and Southern rural and Black communities have been disproportionately targeted as locations for these new centers. 

The Trump Administration has permitted tech companies to maximize America’s competitiveness in the AI market at the expense of the environment and clean water for Americans. Lee Zeldin, the head of the EPA, says that he wants to make America “the AI capital of the world.” There is a clash between the Administration’s desire for American dominance over AI and the need for clean energy facilities that do not aggravate climate change. Kush Desai, White House spokesperson, said that AI “cannot be beholden to unreliable forms of energy that need to be heavily subsidized to be economical.” Desai expresses that America should first and foremost be focused on building AI data centers and that renewable energy, which strains America financially, is a distraction from construction. The Administration ultimately values the creation of data centers and supports big tech companies to build these massive centers, which are detrimental to the environment, as efficiently as possible. Trump’s Executive Order on July 23, 2025, further protects large tech companies and prioritized “the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens” while ignoring the effect these centers have on the Earth and the environmental rights of the people. The Administration aids companies to bring America greater influence in the AI sphere, subsequently exposing Americans to tech companies that have no regard for the implementation of clean energy in their neighborhoods.  

Engineers have already found many ways to allow centers to primarily utilize clean energy in data centers. For example, a closed-loop system recycles one batch of water and uses a cooling tower to cool down water for reuse. This system cuts down freshwater usage by 70%. This system is not new, as nuclear power plants have successfully utilized the closed-loop system for decades. Free cooling is another alternative. . This method deliberately places data centers in cold climates, utilizing the cold air to cool the systems. Free cooling eliminates the need for water at all in favor of cold air. And many prominent companies have found ways to include sustainable practices in their facilities. In August 2024, Microsoft launched new data center designs to eliminate water usage and conserve 125 million liters of water per year. Lenvo Neptune uses direct water cooling that uses a coolant liquid to cool water for reuse and is more efficient than air cooling. Engineers have plenty of methods to cut or avoid water usage, so there needs to be a push for AI corporations to actively implement these clean energy practices.

Most data centers have not fully adapted to clean energy because it is more convenient to rely on water-based cooling systems. In some cases, they can not fully eliminate water usage because they are located in hot climates where they cannot rely on air cooling. Furthermore, chip density is only growing to compensate for increasing AI requests, meaning the temperatures within data centers are on the rise, forcing them to not only rely on water but also on chillers to cool these rising temperatures. The Trump Administration does not help by condoning the accelerated production of these centers without applying necessary regulations, allowing companies to build centers powered entirely by non-renewable energy. 

AI is only going to be more assimilated in our daily lives, and America has the capability to set an example of the compatibility of sustainable energy and successful data centers. The Trump Administration is uninterested in the environmental damage these centers cause, so it ultimately falls on the people to keep tech companies accountable for their impact on the Earth and to push for data centers that are eco-friendly.