06/01/2026
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently launched a public database where people can report concerns about nearby AI data centers: water use, electricity demand, noise, environmental impacts, strain on local infrastructure. More than 2,700 reports have already been submitted.
Newsweek used that database to map over 50 data centers currently under construction against U.S. drought data. What they found is that many of these new facilities are being built in parts of the country already dealing with serious water shortages. And this is happening during what researchers are calling the driest start to a year the U.S. has seen since 1910. More than 60% of the country is currently in drought conditions.
According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a single large data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water per day. To put that in perspective, that's roughly the daily water use of a town with between 10,000 and 50,000 people. Across the U.S., data centers collectively consume nearly 450 million gallons of water per day.
And that demand is growing fast, in places like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, several of which are already experiencing severe to extreme drought.
Here's the thing: I don't think this is mainly a story about tech companies being villains, even though the scale of what's happening is genuinely troubling. I think this is another clear example of a multipolar trap.
The AI arms race is real. The pressure companies feel to build infrastructure fast is real. If one company slows down while competitors race ahead, they risk losing the whole game. So everyone builds. And everyone builds. And the collective result is hundreds of facilities competing for water in regions that are already running out of it, even if no single company set out to cause that outcome.
This is an emergent property of our current system design which does not prioritize human or natural wellbeing but economic growth.
At a bigger picture level, this is a conversation our culture needs to start having more seriously: what does responsible AI infrastructure actually look like? Where should we be building these facilities? Who decides, and who gets a say when local water supplies are on the line? What should AI be used for?
