The total amount consumed by Big Tech could be much, much higher than what they nominally disclose. “When it comes to water, Big Tech only shows its direct water consumption, while hiding its real water footprint,” Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, told me. Based on his research, “Apple’s real water footprint is 100 times what it shows for its direct water consumption. By some calculations, I found that Apple’s real water footprint was about 300-600 billion liters in 2023, which is comparable to Coca Cola’s overall annual water footprint.” Shaolei went on to tell me that:

“More importantly, water footprint has “colors”: Coca Cola’s water footprint is largely “green water footprint” (i.e., water contained in soils and only usable for plants). On the other hand, Big Tech’s water footprint is mostly blue water footprint (i.e., water in surface water and groundwater that is directly usable for humans). The real issue with AI’s water footprint is a lot more (10-100 times) serious. Each Big Tech is a hidden “Coca Cola” in terms of the water footprint.”

In a town called The Dalles in Oregon, USA, local people were worried that Google’s water use was soaring. As is so often the case, the city officials, who had given Google millions in tax breaks, had no intention of letting anyone know how much water Google was using. It was up to a regional paper, the Oregonian, to try and find out. They were forced to bring a case to court. City officials were ordered by Google to argue in court that Google’s use of scarce public water was a “trade secret”. After more than a year of proceedings, city officials were forced to tell their own citizens how much public water Google was using.

“But most troubling in the affair,” Binoy Kampmark wrote for Scoop, “leaving aside the lamentable conduct of public officials, was the willingness of a private company to bankroll a state entity in preventing access to public records.” Actually, it was even worse than that, as Erin Kissane, a respected technology writer, informed me. “Rather than the Oregonian suing for access, the city of The Dalles actually sued the Oregonian in a ‘reverse public records lawsuit’ to prevent the paper from disclosing the data, despite their county district attorney having already ruled that the information should be disclosed. Google funded the suit until the press got too bad and then pulled out, so the city settled.”

In another story of “trade secrets”, David Wren, writing for the Post and Courier in Dorchester County, USA, warned that the amount of public water Google was demanding “is a closely guarded ‘trade secret.’” Imperious Google had imposed a gag order on Dorchester city officials, warning them that they must not tell the public anything about the Google project, particularly how much public water Google was slurping. Again, dragged kicking and screaming, KGB Google was finally forced to tell the public of Dorchester how much public water it was using. “After fighting its disclosure for more than a year, Dorchester County has agreed to publicize the amount of water used at a data center Google is building, reversing its previous stance that the information is a closely guarded trade secret that shouldn’t be shared with the public,” David Wren wrote for the Post and Courier. A victory of sorts for the community? Except that the community would also learn in the disclosure that Google demanded from Dorchester that in case of any natural emergency, its data center would have priority on the water. Like everywhere else, Big Tech demands that its data must drink its fill before people get to drink.