Water scarcity will be the next big challenge for data centres in Europe, predicts GlobalData.
The analytics company says water scarcity now poses an urgent risk to the sustainability and resilience of rapidly expanding digital infrastructure. The OECD estimates that by 2027 AI tools will require between 4.2 billion to 6.6 billion cubic metres of water per year — more than the entire annual use for a country such as Denmark, or nearly half of that of the United Kingdom. But with a substantial increase in wildfires in Europe this year, amid record droughts and extreme heat, the availability of water for data centre cooling is emerging as a critical challenge for the region, claims GlobalData.
“Climate change has produced weather patterns from wildfires to flash floods that are becoming more extreme worldwide,” says Robert Pritchard, principal analyst, enterprise technology and services at GlobalData.
“Superheated ground results in less rain getting abs
