Throughout the United States, data centers are popping up like weeds, devouring water and electricity to fuel the unprecedented demand for AI training and inference. At the same time, water levels in the Great Lakes are lower than they’ve been in years — sparking ardent opposition in the area that could be a sign of things to come far beyond.
New reporting by The Guardian on data centers’ effects on the Great Lakes — the largest freshwater reserves in the world — spotlights concerns that new data center buildouts are leading to lower-than-average water levels throughout the region.
As companies look for areas to plant their immense AI data centers, the small towns dotting the Great Lakes region have made for appetizing targets. In Perkins Township, Ohio, for example, area farmer Tom Hermes tells The Guardian he was alarmed when Texas-based firm Aligned Data Centers began construction on a new compound nearby. A four-building campus at 200,000 square feet in size, the new facility is going up right next to the land Hermes uses for farming.
“We have city water here. That’s going to reduce the pressure if they are sucking all the water,” he told the publication. “They’re not good, I know that.”
It’s worth pointing out that there are still a lot of questions about exactly how much water AI data centers are using. A recent Wired piece, canvassing experts on the issue of data center water usage, found that it’s a muddy issue with many variables.
“In the near term, it’s not a concern and it’s not a nationwide crisis,” advised Cornell environmental studies professor Fengqi You. “But it depends on location. In locations that have existing water stress, building these AI data centers is gonna be a big problem.”
Indeed, not many are up in arms about the high water demand for, say, the type of industrial agriculture that Hermes is engaged in. According to The Guardian, he raises 130 head of cattle, along with corn, wheat, grass, and soybeans on a 1,200 acre plot — one of the most water-hungry ventures imaginable.
Still, many feel that data centers pose a risk to nearby water tables, and researchers are still fleshing out the actual relationship. It also doesn’t help that the rise of AI infrastructure is coinciding with other environmental crises: in the Great Lakes region, for instance, Lake Erie just recorded its second month in a row of water levels well below the long-term average. Compared to 2019, water levels across the five lakes are down anywhere from two to four feet.
And regardless of its absolute impact, AI’s water use has become an emotional flashpoint in the public’s opposition to the tech. In Port Washington, Wisconsin, for example, community members erupted in protest against a new data center during a recent city council meeting. Three were arrested for disorderly conduct against the facility, which local activist group Clean Wisconsin says will use “much more water than tech companies claim” as a result of electricity generation.
“If non-renewable energy sources are used to meet those needs, its off-site water use would be at least 54 million gallons a day,” the group claimed in a November analysis. “For comparison, that’s the water use of about 970,000 Wisconsin residents.” The caveat here is that without government-mandated transparency, it’s hard to know exactly where that energy is coming from, and how much water is used as a result.
Other towns like Hobart, Indiana and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin face similar predicaments. In Michigan’s lower peninsula, tech giants have begun work on 16 data center projects in 2025 alone.
Meanwhile, the water level of the Great Lakes is receding fast. “We’re about 12 inches below the long-term average for the lake,” Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay waterkeeper Heather Smith toldUp North Live in late November, referring to Lake Michigan. “We are lower than last month and certainly lower than we were last year.”
More on data centers: First Responders Are Being Overwhelmed by Data Center Fires
The post Furious Residents Say AI Data Centers Are Sucking Up the Great Lakes appeared first on Futurism.
