The trade body that represents the UK water industry has warned the government that its artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions, which involve trebling the country’s data centre capacity, are at risk “for no other reason than a lack of water”.

Water UK has issued the warning in its response to a call for evidence on data centres’ water use by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee.

It says that the government’s AI strategy relies on more data centres being built “yet, despite the extraordinary growth envisaged and desired, the government has all but forgotten that most data centres require water to cool their systems”.

“Mechanical air cooling, unlike evaporative cooling, does not need water, but it is much more expensive to operate and requires even more electricity (which is also in short supply),” Water UK further warns.

It is also concerned that the government’s estimates of the country’s future water needs “explicitly exclude data centres”.

“This is a problem because such official forecasts cannot, in practice, be exceeded by water companies as they plan for investment in projects like new reservoirs.

“Water companies therefore have a limit placed on how much future water they can provide - a limit based on an inaccurate forecast that we already know to be much too low,” says the water industry body.”

It wans the government to “act now” if it wants to achieve its data centre capacity ambitions.

Ministers are recommended to reduce the limits on water abstraction buy reviewing recept caps on companies’ licences in this area,

It also wants to see water efficiency standards created for data centres. These would require, where possible the use of water that is “either recycled from wastewater treatment works or through installing rainwater harvesting systems”.

In launching its inquiry into the environmental impact of data centres the Environmental Audit Committee ‘s chair and Labour MP for Chesterfield Toby Perkins said: “It’s critical that we really consider what the impacts of data centres will be before we charge into approving them en masse.

“Our inquiry will take a detailed look at the consequences of data centres for the local environment, including their water and energy use, and how the Government is taking account of their impact as they prepare plans for the next Carbon Budget.”

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