Data centres use way too much water . How much is way too much ?

Facilities that use evaporative cooling consume about 8mn gallons of water per megawatt of capacity .

That sounds like a lot .

It means that , in Silicon Valley - where they have around 411 MW of hyperscale capacity - data centres are routinely consuming enough drinking water for about 6.4bn people .

Ok yeah , that ’ s a lot of water in a state that ’ s 85 % stricken by “ severe drought ” right now .

Exactly . It ’ s bad . But a company called Nautilus may have the answer .

What do they do ? They build data centres . On boats .

In April , Nautilus put a 7 MW data centre on a barge in the port of Stockton ( just outside Silicon Valley ) that draws all the water it needs for cooling from the bay beneath it . And the Pact is going to fix it ?

It seems like an effective solution , with Nautilus claiming it ’ s getting a PUE of 1.15 across 100 kW density racks , with zero impact on the local water supply .

� DATA CENTRE SPENDING After a rough 2020 , data centre spending is expected to jump by almost 8 % this year , as the market roars back to life and projects delayed by COVID-19 resume . This year , Gartner predicts data centre spending will surpass $ 200bn .

� DATA CENTRE CONSTRUCTION COSTS To build a hyperscale data centre , you need to spend between $ 10mn and $ 12mn per MW . As demand following the pandemic creates component and skill shortages , that figure could be about to skyrocket . . � INTEL The US chipmaker ’ s sales of server chips are down as a result of increased competition from AMD and Nvidia . Intel is spending $ 20bn on two new chip plants in the US , however , so this “ digestion ” phase may only be temporary .

� WATER WASTE Data centres consume vast amounts of water to cool their servers , which can have a proportional impact on local water supplies . Recent developments ranging from floating data centres to “ waterless ” facilities are fighting this troubling trend

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