Data centres and India's water: claims versus the evidence

Some people in India are worried that big computer buildings called data centres use too much water.

These buildings help run websites and apps, and they need water to stay cool.

People in cities like Visakhapatnam and Bengaluru were concerned because their cities already do not have enough water.

News reports said India's data centres might need almost 150 billion litres of water in one year.

But a careful study found that data centres use only a tiny part of India's water, about 0.02 to 0.03 percent.

That is much less than farms, which use almost 80 percent of the water.

Also, a lot of the water used for cooling evaporates into the sky and later comes back down as rain.

Rules now ask data centres to recycle water and sometimes not let any dirty water out.

Some companies, like Microsoft and Equinix, are already using recycled water.

So data centres use some water, but the worries may be bigger than the real problem.