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Is AI Draining Our Future?

  • shriyadwivedi186
  • 8 minutes ago
  • 4 min read
A Layer 9 data center in Mexico
A Layer 9 data center in Mexico

The past couple of months, my for you page has been flooded with videos and articles pointing out global water bankruptcy. If you don't know this term, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) published a report stating that our global long-term water use has exceeded the amount of safe and sustainable water that our planet can actually support. We essentially are using too much compared to what we have.


Why is this happening and what can we do, if anything, that will actually help us in efforts to sustain our water supply? Take a look below to see everything you need to know about how we have to adapt to our changing world, for better or for worse.



Why is this happening?


Although water scarcity is due to a multitude of factors such as agriculture, industry, climate change, and population growth, the biggest growing contributor is AI data centers. They use water to cool their servers from overheating through evaporative cooling. However, since most data centers use an open loop for evaporative cooling, most water is released to the air in vapor form rather than being recycled or returned to a water supply. In fact, according to NPR, "a mid-sized data center consumes around 300,000 gallons of water a day, or about as much as 1,000 U.S. households." To put things into perspective, Google claims that "1000 standard Google searches cost about 1-3 liters (0.26-0.79 liters) of water."


Additionally, according to National Geographic, "Only about 0.3 percent of our freshwater is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers, and swamps" and freshwater itself makes up less than 1% of all of Earth's water. Therefore, our water supply has always been a precious commodity, but now the rapid construction of data centers in every area is further using up our supply.


What Could We Possibly Do?


Already many data centers are claiming that they are switching to alternative cooling methods such as:


  • Closed Loop Systems: Recycling the same water through radiators so it is not lost to evaporation.


  • Direct-to-Chip Cooling Systems: Running non-conductive, engineered liquids directly across servers instead of relying on room-wide air or water cooling.


  • Utilizing Recycled Water: Tapping into municipal wastewater treatment plants rather than draining residential drinking water supplies. 



However, one Nobel Prize winning innovation also provides a unique solution to our fatal issue. In 1998, Scientist Omar Yaghi and his team created the first ever metal-organic framework (MOFs), which is an extremely porous and rigid material that encapsulates a great surface area for adsorption towards water and PFAS (or "forever" chemicals) by combining metal oxide and organic groups into a crystalline scaffold. In 2025, Yaghi developed MOFs to be able to "absorb water vapor directly from surrounding air" into its pores. Then, as temperatures increase, the MOFs dispense the water vapor as drinkable water. The fact that such a small innovation could effectively filter and dispense liquid water no matter the air humidity reveals that there are man-made solutions that can help us adapt to the man-made problems we created.




Credit: Courtesy of Atoco
Credit: Courtesy of Atoco


My Take


While speaking with family, friends, and peers, I've learned alongside all of you that speaking out about the dangers of generative AI can bring out strong disagreements and conflict amongst others. Yes, it is true that AI has improved efficiency and productivity in so many fields- but does that necessarily mean that we have to ignore the dangers it poses on our natural world? If the United Nations itself is declaring "water bankruptcy" for our planet then why aren't more of us listening?


Realistically, AI is going to stay and will continue to integrate itself in our daily life- so we desperately need to figure out how to sustain our water alongside its presence. It is true that data centers are pivoting to use more conscious methods of cooling (through the methods I stated above), but we should ensure that there is greater participation towards this shift and that there is greater accountability on ourselves. I understand that a majority of people use AI constantly in their day and even legally as some companies are integrating AI in workspaces. However, ask yourself this: Do you need to use AI in the simple moments of your life? Do you need to use AI to generate a grocery list? Do you need to ask AI to identify a constellation while walking outside? Do you really need to ask AI to do your homework for you? These actions are simple questions that we could ask other sources that aren't as water-costly, such as non-AI alternatives....or even do it yourself.



Fossil Creek in Arizona
Fossil Creek in Arizona
The goal isn’t to reject AI, but to use it responsibly while protecting the resources that make its existence possible.


AI is meant to be a tool that we must use strategically, not a substitute for our own work and critical thinking. Use AI intentionally and purposefully when you have to. I'm not saying that we should all stop using AI forever in every aspect of work, but I am advising that we should control our freedom of AI usage and remember how important our own freedom of thought is whenever we have it.


Water is a sacred resource that we will always need to prioritize over AI, so be someone who is conscious of its scarcity and its impact on future generations—because once it’s gone, no amount of innovation or intelligence can fully bring it back.




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