this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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Demand for water cannot be an 'afterthought' in AI push (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 1 week ago by zero_gravitas@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
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In short:

Australia has more than 250 data centres and more in the pipeline, prompting experts to warn against using drinking water to cool servers.

It comes after the Commonwealth announced its National AI Plan after a two-year consultation period.

One water authority is already exploring the use of recycled waste water for data centres.

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[–] Artisian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Glad to see policy discussion on where these things get built.

I don't agree with the headline. Noting that they quote quantities and costs in the article, and those numbers are small compared to other industries (agriculture and flight in particular).

The prediction on total grid use by 2030 requires an extremely optimistic estimate of AI use demand. Either you believe AI is relatively useless, and this growth rate is crazy, or it's useful and we can expect serious returns from the technology that make these costs seem negligible.