Google Used in One Day the Water 1,300 People Would Drink In a Lifetime — Is This Sustainable Tech?

The world is racing towards an AI-driven future, with hopes that upcoming advancements will better mankind. But it comes at a cost. The hidden environmental costs of building and operating necessary infrastructures have begun to surface — and they are staggering. According to data by cybersecurity firm, Surfshark, based on environmental disclosures by four Big Tech companies, the water consumption to maintain digital and internet infrastructure surged by a whopping 60 per cent since 2020, accounting for 132 million cubic metres so far.

Google’s water consumption stood out, with a yearly usage of over 24 million cubic metres in 2023. That is enough water to fill 9,600 Olympic pools each year, or about 26 each a day for the whole year. Humanising this scale would mean that the quantity of water Google consumed in one day in 2023 is equivalent to what 1,300 people would drink in their entire lifetimes (considering the prescribed limit of 52 cubic metres of water a person should drink in a lifetime).

While Microsoft used slightly less water at 7.8 million cubic metres, it recorded the biggest jump of 87 per cent in yearly water consumption between 2020 and 2023. Google’s consumption stood at 69 per cent, instead, per the report. Apple reported over 6 million cubic metres of daily consumed water, which can fill up seven Olympic pools daily. Meta (formerly Facebook) was found to be the least water-consuming company, with over 3 million cubic metres of water consumed in 2023.

According to a Surfshark report, these four Big Tech companies have collectively used 132,344,557 cubic metres of water this decade so far. Just in 2023, these Big Tech companies consumed 41 million cubic metres of water, equivalent to 45 Olympic-sized swimming pools full of water. In 2020, the water consumption stood at 25 million cubic metres, about the same as the water required to fill 28 pools.

Where is the water going?

Most of this water goes into cooling their sprawling data centres, which have emerged as the heart of the operations of Big Tech with growing AI demands. Data centres need continuous water cooling to remain operational, a huge part of which goes into keeping chatbots active and processing real-time translation. That means data centres are heating up more by the second. While OpenAI’s water consumption data is not official, experts found the recent Studio Ghibli trend cost the environment drastically, losing gallons of water every minute to generate images.

What are these companies doing?

While water consumption seems inevitable for these companies that rely on data centres for their business, they have assured water projects to reduce yearly usage. Meta says it wants to be water positive by 2030, restoring over 7.2 billion litres annually. Meanwhile, Microsoft has doubled its water replenishment efforts in a bid to offer clean water access to 1.5 million people. Similarly, Apple reported a 42 per cent water reuse. Google, which accounted for the maximum water usage, supports 74 water programmes and plans to restore 120 per cent of freshwater by 2030.

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