For those wondering how TF a data center that is not even online yet could be using so much water:

• Soil compaction
• Dust suppression

That’s it. For the scale of that project, that’s all it would take to use 30 million gallons.

When they’re done, they also need to flush miles of pipes which could also use a few million gallons but I don’t think they’re at that phase yet.

This amount of water would be used no matter what buildings they were constructing in that amount of space. Meaning: This article is pretty misleading clickbait (because a lot of people hate data centers lately, the headline will generate clicks).

The alternative is to have loads of data centers instead of one big one. That’s more expensive, so they build a single big one.

If you don’t like data centers, it makes sense to build a few really, really big ones like this rather than lots of smaller ones. Because data centers are necessary and important aspects of modern living. They’re not going to just go away. There’s nothing that could replace them.