Elon Musk Backs NVIDIA As AI’s Biggest Environmental Criticism Takes a Hit
Elon Musk has backed NVIDIA’s declare that knowledge heart water use is much smaller than critics recommend.
Data facilities face rising scrutiny over how a lot water and electrical energy they eat. NVIDIA says its newest cooling programs can almost erase the water that older amenities lose to evaporation.
What NVIDIA Claims About Data Center Water Use
NVIDIA’s post cited a March 2026 estimate from the Manhattan Institute that knowledge facilities use roughly 0.2% of U.S. freshwater, most of it not directly by way of energy era.
The firm mentioned its 45-degree Celsius liquid cooling lets AI factories in cool climates run on dry coolers moderately than evaporative towers.
That shift can lower facility cooling water from about 2.6 million gallons per megawatt every year to close zero.
NVIDIA made the identical case in 2025, claiming its Blackwell programs had been 300 instances extra water environment friendly than air cooling.
Because cooling can attain 40% of a knowledge heart’s electrical energy, the design additionally trims energy prices. Similar trade-offs now form the worldwide AI data center race.
Why Elon Musk’s Endorsement Matters
Musk, who runs massive NVIDIA-powered clusters by way of xAI, has repeatedly praised NVIDIA’s latest chips because the spine of his AI initiatives.
His endorsement helps NVIDIA’s push in opposition to the view that AI progress drains native water provides. The firm describes its system as a closed loop that recirculates coolant as an alternative of consuming contemporary water.
“The NVIDIA DSX reference design for AI factories has zero water consumption … we’ve eradicated large quantities of energy utilization and just about all water utilization,” Ali Heydari, director of information heart cooling and infrastructure at NVIDIA
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The Case for Caution
The nationwide determine hides the element. NVIDIA’s near-zero declare covers direct cooling, the smaller a part of the footprint.
U.S. knowledge facilities used about 17.4 billion gallons of water straight in 2023, a Berkeley Lab report discovered, plus one other 211 billion gallons not directly by way of the electrical energy they drew.
That oblique share climbs as AI scales, and direct use alone is projected to achieve 38 to 73 billion gallons by 2028.
Dry coolers additionally depend upon local weather, working finest in cool areas and fewer properly in scorching, dry states.
The pressure is seen at Musk’s personal xAI. Its Memphis Colossus website has drawn roughly 1.3 million gallons of consuming water a day from the native aquifer and ran dozens of fuel generators earlier than securing permits, prompting a data center pollution lawsuit and neighborhood appeals.
How regulators and water-stressed areas reply could determine whether or not effectivity good points preserve tempo with the trade’s enlargement and the broader contest for AI capital.
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