Kevin O’Leary is pushing back against a common concern in the AI data center boom: that the sprawling facilities consume too much water and put pressure on those local systems.
During a recent appearance on Glenn Beck’s radio show, the “Shark Tank” investor argued that modern AI data centers use far less water than many people believe, likening their water use to that of golf courses.
O’Leary, whose firm O’Leary Ventures is developing massive data centers in Utah and Canada, has emerged as one of the industry’s most vocal proponents.
Pointing to his Utah development, O’Leary said on the show that the first phase of the project, with 1.4 gigawatts of power capacity, would be “no different than a golf course” in terms of water use. He argued that’s the comparison critics should be making.
“Because data centers, not just my project,” O’Leary said, “any new data center now is like a golf course.”
Data centers can use vast amounts of water, both directly for cooling servers and indirectly through the electricity required to power them.
A previous Business Insider investigation found that some of the largest data center facilities in the United States were permitted to use more water each day than nearly 49,000 Americans would typically consume.
Like O’Leary, some tech leaders have challenged criticism of data centers’ water use, arguing that advances in cooling technologies like closed-loop systems are making AI infrastructure more efficient.
Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed what he called “totally insane” claims circulating online that his AI firm is using large amounts of water to power ChatGPT.
“Water is totally fake,” Altman said, when asked about concerns over AI companies’ water use. “It used to be true, we used to do evaporative cooling in data centers, but now that we don’t do that, you know, you see these like things on the internet where, ‘Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s 17 gallons of water for each query’ or whatever.”
Speaking on Beck’s show, O’Leary said: “The new modern era data center does not require anywhere near the water that was used 15 years ago in Virginia, where data centers got a bad name because of how much water they consume.”
O’Leary, in his advocacy for data centers, added, “The new rule of engagement should be this — as part of the national solution is — if I’m going to bring a data center anywhere, I’ve got to bring my own power. I got to spend billions to build power, and then give some of it back to the grid, so we can stay competitive.”
Meanwhile, O’Leary is facing a defamation lawsuit after he made comments in several media appearances accusing some opponents of his Utah data center project of being backed by the Chinese Communist Party.
Prior to the lawsuit, O’Leary clarified on social media that he had no evidence that the critics were funded by China.
Jeffrey Neiman, an attorney for O’Leary, previously told Business Insider in a statement that his “Mr. Wonderful” client intends to “defend this lawsuit vigorously” and bring counterclaims.
Neiman also called the lawsuit a “cash grab.”
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