Paschal Donohoe Warns: Data Centers' Thirsty Water Use

FORMER FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe has come out against the expansion of data centres, warning about their intensive usage of water and electricity in his new role at the World Bank. Donohoe – who left his role at the heart of government last year for the global financial institution – quoted research outlining that the rapid rise of AI could see global water demand for data centres spike to levels that are multiples of countries like Denmark as they try to keep their servers running. The growing dependency on electricity for data centres has arisen repeatedly over recent months, but Donohoe said that we should also be paying attention to water usage by data centres. But Donohoe’s surprise message has been criticised by environmental group Friends of the Earth, who said Donohoe should have shown this “level of clarity” on the issue when he sat at Cabinet for more than a decade. Last week, Cabinet signed off on a plan to build more data centres across the country. The research now shared by the former minister outlines that global water demand by data centres is likely to be accelerated by the heavy use of computing power by AI, to the point where this alone could rival water use by small western states. “Data centres are not only energy-intensive, they are water-intensive,” Donohoe posted, quoting an article he shared by the World Bank. “Choices made now will shape tomorrow’s trade-offs.” The World Bank piece covers some of these likely trade-offs, explaining that the emergence of AI could result in the technology helping to conserve water and repair leaky systems, arguing that the benefits of data centres “could potentially exceed” the costs. Advertisement Environmental group Friends of the Earth welcomed Donohoe’s message but claimed there are “countless examples” of the ex-Fine Gael TD defending data centre expansion while in office. Campaign director Jerry McEvilly told The Journal that we “need this level of clarity from ministers in office, not when they’ve left”. He pointed to previous comments made in 2022 defending the growing sector, in which he described them as “hugely important” to large employers, and also separately criticised campaigners who “want to chase data centres out of Ireland”. Friends of the Earth have raised the alarm over data centre expansion due to what they have described as their “undermining of electricity infrastructure and climate obligations” for Ireland. ‘Thirsty’ data centres In the article shared by Donohoe, co-written by World Bank economists and its global water director, the authors warned that data center electricity use could more than double its current amount by 2030 – roughly the same amount used by Japan every year. Central to this is the rapid rise of Artificial intelligence (AI), as it depends on cloud infrastructure underpinned by data centers that house thousands of servers. “Data centers are not just energy hungry. They are also thirsty,” the World Bank authors said. Computing generates enormous amounts of heat, and much like our bodies cool themselves by sweating, data centers use water evaporation to keep servers from overheating, often using potable water from the same supplies that serve communities, homes and businesses. However, the World Bank authors added that the technology may yet hold benefits that could “potentially exceed” the cost of the heavy water usage driven by AI. AI tools could “help detect leaks in city pipes, fine tune irrigation schedules, forecast floods and droughts”, the authors explained. “But whether AI lands on the right side of the water ledger will depend on the choices we make,” it cautioned.