Water

President Macron is the latest world leader to jump on the bandwagon, announcing plans for €109bn in AI investment, at a gathering of tight suits in Paris. Europe, according to the President, is ‘ne pas’ in the race. This follows the Prime Minister’s very own souped-up ambitions to create ‘AI growth zones’ and become a major tech player, turbocharging the mojo of a nation whose indifferent expression is stirred only by 2-for-1 meal deals and celebrity gossip. All change. That AI was the story in the stock market last year, is no secret. The IT sector rose three times more than the rest of the market fuelled by stocks exposed to the AI-boom. That data centres consume colossal amounts of energy, is also no secret. The US Department of Energy released a report suggesting that data centres might account for 12% of energy consumption by 2028, all but doubling in three short years. Experts mutter that adding capacity at such a lick, to meet the surging demand, is simply not going to happen. All the planning, application form filling, zoning and reviewing, within a regulated industry, means that the successful role-out of everything AI, has a big limiting factor. And if the challenge surrounding the rapid build out of non-intermittent electric power wasn’t enough, there is another problem: water. The racks and racks of severs, stuffed into rows and rows in the shiny new data centres, get hot. It is reported that cooling a 1GW centre requires up to 200,000 barrels of water… per day. It goes without saying that water is also needed for the electric power, courtesy of the steam needed to drive the turbines that get electric generators going. And the mega-scale centres planned to store all our future cat photos will need even more water. And probably more than even currently anticipated. That AI is a hot theme is out there. That water is a limiting factor, and thereby essential to the growth of $17 trillion of stock market value is, perhaps, less so. Hosepipe bans all round.