Cities and counties across America are debating proposed data centers, and judging by Facebook, the end of civilization appears imminent.
People are worried it will take all the fresh water.
This concern is being expressed… on Facebook.
Which, of course, runs entirely on data centers.
You have to admire the efficiency of the modern protest: using the very thing you’re protesting in order to protest it.
Here’s a number that rarely shows up in these conversations.
Researchers estimate that a typical AI or cloud interaction uses roughly half a liter of water somewhere in the system—about a 16-ounce bottle—once you account for the electricity generation and cooling required in the data center.
So every time someone types out a long post about how terrible data centers are… there’s a decent chance they just used about a bottle of water helping run the servers that delivered it.
Now let’s be fair. Data centers do use water. Big ones can use a lot of it. Cooling thousands of servers that run day and night is not like cooling the family refrigerator.
But here’s another part of the story that rarely gets mentioned. Many modern data centers recycle or reuse much of their cooling water, running it through closed-loop systems or using reclaimed municipal water instead of drinking water.
And before anyone panics about water use, it’s worth remembering that a single golf course in Arizona or South Florida can use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day to keep those fairways looking like Augusta National.
But nobody is posting on Facebook demanding the shutdown of the 18th hole.
And here’s the part nobody seems to notice.
The same folks typing angry comments online are sitting in homes full of devices that depend on those same data centers.
The phone in your pocket? Data centers.
Your smart TV streaming Netflix? Data centers.
Your Ring doorbell? Data centers.
Your Alexa speaker? Data centers.
Your Apple watch counting your steps? Data centers.
Playing Spotify in your car? Data centers.
Every photo uploaded, every map searched, every email sent, every weather check, every video streamed—all of it runs through giant buildings full of servers humming away somewhere.
Those buildings don’t float in the sky. The “cloud” is not actually a cloud.
It’s a warehouse full of computers.
People talk about the internet like it’s magic. But it isn’t. It’s infrastructure. Just like highways, power plants, and water systems.
And like every other kind of infrastructure, people love using it. They just don’t want to see it.
We’ve been here before.
Nobody wants a power plant nearby. Nobody wants transmission lines. Nobody wants cell towers. Nobody wants pipelines.
But everyone wants electricity, cell service, internet, and gasoline.
Modern life runs on things people don’t like looking at.
Data centers are simply the newest version.
Now here’s the part that’s really worth thinking about.
Artificial intelligence is about to multiply the need for these facilities several times over. AI systems require massive computing power. That means more servers, more electricity, more cooling.
In other words, more data centers.
The same people who enjoy instant answers from AI, voice assistants, navigation apps, online banking, and streaming movies are all using the infrastructure that makes those services possible.
You can’t have one without the other.
Complaining about data centers while posting online is a little like complaining about airports while boarding a plane.
At some point we have to decide whether we want the modern world—or just the conveniences of it without the machinery.
Because the truth is simple.
The cloud isn’t in the sky.
It’s in a building somewhere.
And somebody’s county has to host it.