<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/04/thirsty-work-how-the-rise-of-massive-datacentres-strains-australias-drinking-water-supply>
"As Australia rides the AI boom with dozens of new investments in datacentres
in Sydney and Melbourne, experts are warning about the impact these massive
projects will have on already strained water resources.
Water demand to service datacentres in Sydney alone is forecast to be larger
than the volume of Canberra’s total drinking water within the next decade.
In Melbourne the Victorian government has announced a “$5.5m investment to
become Australia’s datacentre capital”, but the hyperscale datacentre
applications on hand already exceed the water demands of nearly all of the
state’s top 30 business customers combined.
Technology companies, including Open AI and Atlassian, are pushing for
Australia to become a hub for data processing and storage. But with 260
datacentres operating and dozens more in the offing, experts are flagging
concerns about the impact on the supply of drinking water.
Sydney Water has estimated up to 250 megalitres a day would be needed to
service the industry by 2035 (a larger volume than Canberra’s total drinking
water)."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
