AI, Energy and Climate: Data Center Water Use: Alexis Abramson, Julio Friedmann and Angela Yuan

The DSR Network

Chris Cotnoir

Government

4.5 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How significant is data center water use? Is it tiny in relation to other sectors, significant in some water-stressed regions, or both? Can new liquid-based cooling technologies which (perhaps counter-intuitively) need less water than traditional air-based cooling technologies help? Join host David Sandalow as he discusses these topics and more with three coauthors of the new Sustainable Data Centers Roadmap -- Alexis Abramson (Dean of the Columbia Climate School), Julio Friedmann (Chief Scientist at Carbon Direct) and Angela Yuan (a master's degree candidate at the University of Cambridge). ICEF Sustainable Data Centers Roadmap -- icef.go.jp/roadmap This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Say hello to the next generation of Zendesk AI agents, built to deliver resolutions for everyone.
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0:15.3	So mainly the issue is that data centers today, both existing and planned, are frequently clustered in dry areas
0:22.6	because they have cheap energy and they have cheap land availability.
0:26.3	So for example, in the U.S. since 2022, there has been over two-thirds of data centers that
0:32.3	have been built or in development that are in high water stress areas.
0:36.6	Just to repeat, liquid-based cooling uses less water than air-based cooling, and you think the
0:42.3	industry is moving in that direction.
0:44.0	Is that correct?
0:45.6	Yes, the industry has to move in that direction.
0:48.3	And if you talk to all the hyperscalers out there, as they're thinking and talking about
0:53.8	the design of their next
0:55.2	generation data centers. Everybody's moving to liquid base cooling.
0:59.6	So one of the things we say in the report is that the global water use for agriculture
1:05.2	is 12,000 times more than the projected water use in 2030 for data centers. Agriculture uses 12,000 times more.
1:16.1	So if you had a 0.008% improvement in agricultural water use, you would balance out all of the data center use.
1:29.8	Welcome to the AI Energy and Climate Podcast, a special series from the DSR network hosted by
1:36.7	David Sandelow, inaugural fellow at Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy.
1:42.2	Join us as we talk with leading experts to explore the intersection
1:45.8	between these critical issues that will impact the future of each and every one of us.
1:54.1	To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on the DSR network.
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