Comment by aziaziazi
> the company [microsoft] plans to be water positive by 2030 which means that they “put more water into the local basins where we operate than we withdraw”
> AWS has the same target, while Google has pledged to “replenish 120 percent of the freshwater volume we consume, on average, across our offices and data centers by 2030.”
How is that supposed to work?
The cynic in me can’t help thinking of an high-energy or production-externalities-imported system, but I’d be glad to ear about a sustainable local water creation.
If we would really have a chance to ask an official, whomever that may be, either from government or the tech companies, the (scripted) answer would probably go like this:
By 2030, AI will make revolutionary advancements in water management which will reduce our total water consumption, reduce waste, improve the wastewater treatment efficiency by 15x, so that, overall, the industry is not consuming but producing water.