① A looming problem that may pose a significant threat to the AI industry: the water crisis; ② Morgan Stanley It was recently pointed out that AI is not only a major electricity consumer, but also a "big water consumer";③ The bank pointed out that the real bottleneck is that water resources cannot be allocated across regions like electricity.
Nvidia in focus on Wall Street Amidst GPU shipments and grid demand, a looming question may affect artificial intelligence. The AI industry poses a major threat: the water crisis .
A recent report by Morgan Stanley points out that AI is not only a major electricity consumer but also a major water consumer . Data centers supporting AI operations... It is heavily reliant on water resources.
According to Morgan Stanley 's model, by 2028, AI data centers will consume 106.8 billion liters of water for cooling and power generation. If the demand for artificial intelligence surges as optimistically predicted, this figure could rise to 148.5 billion liters, equivalent to the annual water consumption of several medium-sized cities.
Morgan Stanley stated that investors often underestimate the constraints that water resources pose on the expansion of AI. The bank pointed out that although the power generation process consumes a huge amount of water, the real bottlenecks lie in localized cooling needs and chip manufacturing, where water resource risks are highly regional .
Morgan Stanley explained that, unlike electricity, water resources cannot be transferred across regions . For example, the Amazon... Amazon Web Services' "Blue Plan"—a large data center project planned by AWS—was rejected in Arizona because it would consume too much local water and electricity.
In the UK, Anglian Water opposes the construction of an artificial intelligence data center due to local water supply issues.
As a solution, tech giants are setting industry standards by adopting new cooling technologies such as microchannel liquid cooling plates and seawater cooling.
Regulators are also imposing stricter restrictions on water usage standards for data centers.
Morgan Stanley predicts structural growth in the desalination and treatment solutions market. The bank believes that companies with core water resource management technologies may have a competitive advantage over some pure-play technology stocks .
(Article source: CLS)
