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Technology companies have I invested a lot of money in construction Data centers In recent months, it’s actively Leadership of the American economyThe AI race shows no signs of slowing down. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg told President Donald Trump last week that the company would spend $600 billion on US infrastructure — including data centers — by 2028, while OpenAI has already committed to spending $1.4 trillion.
A comprehensive new analysis looks at the environmental footprint of data centers in the United States to learn exactly what the country may face as this construction continues over the next few years — and where the United States should build data centers to avoid the most harmful environmental impacts.
the He studiesThe research, published in the journal Nature Communications on Monday, uses a variety of data, including demand for AI chips and information on electricity and water scarcity in the country, to project the potential environmental impacts of future data centers through the end of the decade. The study models a number of different potential scenarios for how data centers could impact the United States and the planet, and warns that the net-zero promises of technology companies are unlikely to withstand the energy and water needs of the massive facilities they build.
The study, which began three years ago, comes at “an ideal time to understand how artificial intelligence affects climate systems and water use and consumption,” says Fengqi Yu, a professor of energy systems engineering at Cornell University and one of the authors of the analysis.
He adds that the AI industry is “growing much faster than we expected,” especially with the Trump administration so focused on the industry. “The whole thing is getting a lot of momentum right now.”
Not all data centers are created equal environmentally: much of their water and carbon footprint depends on where they are located. Some US states may have grids that run more on renewable energy, or are making strides in putting more clean energy on the grid; This significantly reduces carbon emissions from the data centers that draw power from those networks. Likewise, countries with less water scarcity are better suited to supply the large amounts of water needed to cool data centers. (Cooling also makes up a large portion of data center energy use.) The analysis concludes that the best locations for data centers over the next few years in the United States are states that balance these two inputs: Texas, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota are “optimal candidates for installing AI servers.”
Much of US data center construction has historically focused on places like Virginia, the data center hub of the US, and Northern California. Proximity to Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley was important to data center companies, as were those areas’ dense fiber connectivity and their skilled workforce. Virginia has also offered large tax breaks for data centers for years, a tactic other states have used to attract development. according to Data center mapan industry tool that tracks the evolution of data centers, says of the more than 4,000 data centers in the United States, more than 650 are in Virginia — the largest number in the country — and California has more than 320, ranking third.