Texas Researchers Say Permian Wastewater Could Cool AI Data Centers
The artificial intelligence boom is placing a dangerous strain on the world’s water and energy resources. As hyperscalers build up resource-hungry data centers at a breakneck pace, demand projections for these finite resources are skyrocketing faster than policymakers can keep pace. But a new study from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin suggests that there may be a way to…
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have discovered a potential solution to help sustainably source water for AI data centers by utilizing wastewater from the oil and gas industry. The study, published in the scientific journal Water Research, calculates that the water footprint of large AI data centers could be significantly reduced by recycling wastewater generated by the oil and gas sector.
Data centers can consume as much as 5 million gallons of water per day, but the true water usage of these operations might be even higher when indirect water usage is accounted for, as in the case of powering the data centers. The most efficient method for desalinating wastewater found in the study is reverse osmosis, though it struggles with water saltier than seawater.
Another option is heating water into vapor to capture the resulting freshwater, though this approach is more energy-intensive. Regardless, both methods are not new and are accessible for implementation. By repurposing wastewater from the oil and gas sector, data centers would be able to reduce their water footprint, which would also address a problem for the fossil fuel sector by closing a problematic resource loop.
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