by Upon retiring in 2016, Beverly Morris believed she had discovered her ideal residence—a serene area in rural Georgia, surrounded by trees and tranquility.
Today, it's anything but.
Only 400 yards (366m) away from her front porch in Fayette County is a big, windowless structure housing servers, cables, and flashing lights.
It's a data center — one of numerous facilities emerging throughout small towns in America and worldwide, supporting everything from online banking to AI tools such as ChatGPT.
I can't reside in my house when part of it is operational and there's no water," Ms. Morris states. "I can't consume the water.
She thinks the development of the center, which is owned by Meta (the parent company of Facebook), disturbed her private well, leading to an overaccumulation of sediment. Ms. Morris now transports water in buckets to flush her toilet.
She claims she had to repair the plumbing in her kitchen to regain water pressure. However, the water from the tap still contains sediment.
I'm scared to drink the water, but I still use it for cooking and brushing my teeth," Morris says. "Am I concerned about it? Yes.
However, Meta claims there is no connection between the two.
In a message to the Tech Bytes Lab, Meta stated that "being a good neighbor is a priority."
The organization hired an external investigation to examine Morris's worries. As per the findings, the data center's activities "did not negatively impact groundwater conditions in the region".
Although Meta denies causing the issues with Ms. Morris' water, there is no question, in her view, that the company has lost its welcome as her neighbor.
This was my ideal place," she remarks. "But that's no longer the case.
We often imagine the cloud as an invisible entity - hovering above us in the digital realm. However, the truth is quite tangible.
The cloud operates across more than 10,000 data centers globally, with the majority situated in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.
As AI continues to boost online engagement, that figure is increasing rapidly. Alongside this, there are more complaints from local residents.
The American economic surge is facing opposition from an increase in grassroots activism - involving $64bn (£47bn) in initiativesdelayed or blocked nationwide,as per a report by the advocacy group Data Center Watch.
Moreover, the issues extend beyond building. There are also worries regarding water consumption. Maintaining the temperature of these servers demands a significant amount of water.
These processors are extremely hot," Mark Mills from the National Center for Energy Analytics stated during a congressional hearing in April. "The surface of each chip is hotter than the sun's surface. A significant amount of water is required to keep them cool.
Numerous facilities employ evaporative cooling systems, in which water takes in heat and evaporates—much like how sweat helps remove heat from our bodies. On extremely hot days, one building might consume millions of gallons.
One research project suggests that data centers powered by artificial intelligence might use1.7 trillion gallons water globally by 2027.
Several locations highlight this conflict more distinctly than Georgia – a rapidly expanding data center market in the United States.
Its moist climate offers a natural and more economical source of water for cooling data centers, appealing to developers. However, this availability might carry a price.
Gordon Rogers serves as the executive director of Flint Riverkeeper, a non-profit organization that advocates for and tracks the condition of Georgia's Flint River. He leads us to a stream located below a recently started construction project for a data center being developed by the U.S. company Quality Technology Services (QTS).
George Diets, a community volunteer, collects a water sample in a transparent plastic bag. The water is murky and brown.
"That shouldn't be the color," he states. To him, this indicates sediment runoff—and maybe flocculants. These are substances used in construction to hold soil together and stop erosion, but if they get into the water supply, they can form sludge.
QTS claims its data centers adhere to strict environmental guidelines and generate significant local tax income.
Although construction is typically handled by outside contractors, it is the local residents who end up facing the results.
They shouldn't be doing that," Mr. Rogers states. "A property owner with more wealth and a larger property does not possess greater property rights than one who owns less and has a smaller property.
Major technology companies state that they recognize the problems and are implementing measures to address them.
"Our objective is to, by 2030, return more water to the watersheds and communities where our data centers are located than we extract," says Will Hewes, the global water stewardship lead at Amazon Web Services (AWS), which operates more data centers than any other company worldwide.
He mentions that AWS is funding initiatives such as fixing leaks, collecting rainwater, and utilizing treated wastewater for cooling purposes. In Virginia, the company is collaborating with farmers to decrease nutrient pollution in Chesapeake Bay, the biggest estuary in the United States.
In South Africa and India – where AWS does not utilize water for cooling purposes – the company continues to invest in programs focused on water access and quality.
In the Americas, Mr. Hewes mentions, water is utilized on roughly 10% of the hottest days annually.
Nevertheless, the figures make sense. A single AI query—such as a request to ChatGPT—can consume roughly the same amount of water as a small bottle you might purchase from a local store. When multiplied by billions of queries each day, the magnitude becomes evident.
Professor Rajiv Garg instructs students on cloud computing at Emory University in Atlanta. He believes these data centers are not disappearing—rather, they are increasingly serving as the foundation of contemporary life.
"No going back now," Professor Garg says.
But there exists a way ahead. He contends that the crucial factor is long-term planning: advanced cooling mechanisms, collection of rainwater, and improved infrastructure.
In the near future, data centers will impose "a significant burden," he acknowledges. However, the sector is beginning to move towards eco-friendly practices.
Yet, this offers little comfort to homeowners like Beverly Morris—caught between yesterday's aspirations and tomorrow's developments.
Data centers are no longer just a trend in the industry – they have become integral to national policy. President Donald Trump recently promised to construct the biggest AI infrastructure initiative ever, referring to it as "a future driven by American data."
In Georgia, the sun shines intensely through heavy humidity — a sign of why the state is appealing to data center builders.
For residents, the future of technology is already present. And it's noisy, consumes a lot of resources, and can be challenging to live near.
As artificial intelligence advances, the issue becomes evident: how to fuel the digital future without depleting the most essential resource of all – water.
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