AI against residents: a data center in Georgia pumped 110 million liters of water

A large AI data center in Georgia caused major water problems in Fayette County. While local residents complained about the critical drop in water pressure, the giant facility under construction was imperceptibly pumping out millions of liters of water. As reported by Tom’s Hardware with reference to Politico, the developer of the project used two unofficially connected water pipes to meet the needs of the campus construction.

Incident in Fayette County

The situation gained publicity after one of the residents of the district submitted a request for public information and discovered a letter from the water utility to the developer company. It turned out that the illegal use of water was attributed to the developer QTS (part of the Blackstone holding), which manages the construction of the campus. Despite the large-scale violation and the amount of water consumed in 110 million liters, the company did not receive any fines. The district limited itself to billing only for actual consumption.

Project Excalibur

The project, codenamed Project Excalibur, is one of the largest projects in the data center industry in the United States. At the stage of development, the object has the following characteristics:

• Total area: 576,000 m².
• Number of buildings: 13 (expanding to 16 in the future).
• Start of construction: 2023.
• Terms of completion: 3–5 years.

Water was used mainly for the initial cycles of work: pouring concrete, preparing sites and fighting construction dust. QTS says that in the future, data centers will switch to closed-loop cooling systems that require only minimal replenishment, except for a permanent fence from the city network.

Cost and financial indicators

The investment scale of the project is impressive, which probably influenced the softness of the local authorities in relation to the violator. The developer expects investments in the amount of about 1 billion US dollars. Fayette County officials predict that when the facility is fully operational, it will bring in $150 million to $200 million annually in property taxes to the local budget. Regarding the “stolen” water bill, QTS was ordered to pay $147,474. Penalties were not applied because the data center is considered the largest customer with which it is important to maintain partnership relations.

Reasons of uncontrolled consumption

Why did the fence of huge volumes of water go unnoticed for months? Authorities say the cause is a “procedural error” that occurred during the modernization of the local water supply system to cloud-based accounting software. It is interesting that the data on the duration of the incident differ: the management of the water utility claims 4 months of unaccounted use, while the company representatives talk about a period of 9 to 15 months.

Nuances of operation

The state of Georgia is currently facing a drought, and Governor Brian Kemp has even declared a state of emergency due to wildfires. In these conditions, the issue of water resources use by data centers is particularly acute. In total, there are about 200 such facilities in the state. Previously, in order to protect the population, the authorities even fixed basic tariffs for electricity until 2028, so that the appetites of technological giants do not affect the wallets of citizens.