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Concern UK’s AI ambitions could lead to water shortages

Zoe Kleinman, Technology editor•@zskm Brian Wheeler, Senior political reporter.
 BBC 7th Feb 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce85wx9jjndo

Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to make the UK a “world leader” in Artificial Intelligence (AI) could put already stretched supplies of drinking water under strain, industry sources have told the BBC.

The giant data centres needed to power AI can require large quantities of water to prevent them from overheating.

The tech industry says it is developing more efficient cooling systems that use less water.

But the department for science, innovation and technology said in a statement it recognised the plants “face sustainability challenges”. The government has committed to the construction of multiple data centres around the country in an effort to kick start economic growth.

Ministers insist the notoriously power-hungry server farms will be given priority access to the electricity grid.

Questions have been raised about the impact this might have on the government’s plans for clean energy production by 2030.

But less attention has been given to the impact data centres could have on the supply of fresh, drinkable water to homes and businesses.

Parts of the UK, in the south especially, are already under threat of water shortages because of climate change and population growth.

The government is backing plans for nine new reservoirs to ease the risk of rationing and hosepipe bans during droughts.

But some of these are in areas where new data centres are set to be built.

The first of the government’s “AI growth zones” will be in Culham, Oxfordshire, at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s campus – seven miles from the site of a planned new reservoir at Abingdon.

The 4.5 sq mile (7 sq km) reservoir will supply customers in the Thames Valley, London and Hampshire. It is not known how much water the massive new data centres now planned nearby could take from it.

The BBC understands Thames Water has been talking to the government about the challenge of water demand in relation to data centres and how it can be mitigated.

In a new report, the Royal Academy of Engineering calls on the government to ensure tech companies accurately report how much energy and water their data centres are using.

It also calls for environmental sustainability requirements for all data centres, including reducing the use of drinking water, moving to zero use for cooling.

Without such action, warns one of the report’s authors, Prof Tom Rodden, “we face a real risk that our development, deployment and use of AI could do irreparable damage to the environment”.

February 9, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, water