Something that we don’t consider:
Google’s water use in The Dalles has nearly tripled in the past five years, and the company’s data centers now consume more than a quarter of all the water used in the city.
That’s according to records released this week after the city settled a lawsuit against The Oregonian/OregonLive and agreed to hand over data on Google’s water consumption. The company’s water use is poised to continue soaring in the years ahead, as Google has plans for two more data centers along the Columbia River.
Why aren’t the environmental concerns weighing here? Water is required to cool down the massive servers, and as the pace grows unabated, this will become paramount.
This is disturbing:
City attorneys claimed Google’s water use was a “trade secret,” exempt from disclosure under Oregon law, and sued The Oregonian/OregonLive to block the release of the information. Google paid more than $100,000 to fund The Dalles’ legal fight to maintain that secrecy over the past year.
I can’t comment on local legislation, but this amounts to “buying silence”. We need to be cognisant of the accelerated pace of the adoption of AI.
RadOncNotes 