‘I can’t drink the water’

When Beverly Morris retired in 2016, she believed that she had found her dream home – a peaceful extension of the rural Georgia, surrounded by trees and calm.

Today, nothing but.

Only 400 yards (366 meters) of its front balcony in the Fayette Province, a large building is located without windows full of servers, cables and flashing lights.

It is a data center – one of the many people who have appeared all over the world, and around the world, to run everything from online banking services to artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT.

“I can’t live in my house with half of my house working and no water,” says Ms. Morris. “I can’t drink water.”

She believes that the construction of the center, owned by Meta (the parent company of Facebook), has disrupted its own well, causing the accumulation of excessive sediments. Mrs. Morris is now transporting water in Dadda to expel her toilet.

She says she had to repair plumbing in her kitchen to restore water pressure. But the water that comes from the tap still has residue in it.

“I am afraid to drink water, but I still cook with it, and my teeth are brushing with it,” Morris says. “Am I worried about it? Yes.”

Mita, however, says the two are not connected.

In a statement to the British Broadcasting Corporation, Mita said, “To be a good neighbor is a priority.”

The company cost an independent groundwater study to investigate Morris’s concerns. According to the report, its data center has not negatively affected the groundwater conditions in the region.

While Mita caused the water problems of Mrs. Morris, there is no doubt, in her estimation, that the company may welcome her as a man.

“This was the perfect place,” she says. “But it is no longer.”

We tend to think about the cloud as an invisible thing – floating above us in digital ether. But the reality is very physical.

The cloud lives in more than 10,000 data centers around the world, most of which are located in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.

With artificial intelligence now in the online activity, this number grows quickly. And with them, more complaints from the nearby population.

The US boom faces a challenge by increasing local activity – with 64 billion dollars (47 billion pounds) in projects Delayed or prohibited at the country level, According to a report from the pressure group data control center.

Fears are not only related to construction. It is also about the use of water. Maintaining these cold servers requires a lot of water.

“These are very hot treatments,” Mark Mills from the National Energy Analysis Center before the return of Congress in April. “The surface of each slice is hotter than the surface of the sun. It takes a lot of water to cool.”

Many centers use evapoic cooling systems, as water absorbs heat and evaporates – similar to how sweat is removed from the heat from our bodies. On hot days, one elbow can use millions of gallons.

One study estimates that the data centers driven by artificial intelligence can consume it 1.7 trillion gallons Water worldwide by 2027.

Some places clearly show this tension more than Georgia – one of the fastest growing data center markets in the United States.

Its wet climate provides a natural and effective source of water for cooling data centers, making it attractive to developers. But that abundance may come at a cost.

Gordon Rogers is the CEO of Flint Riverber, a non -profit support group that monitors the health of the Flint River in Georgia. It takes us to the bottom of the creek from a new construction site for a data center built by American quality technology services (QTS).

George Wames, a local volunteer, raises a sample of water in a transparent plastic bag. It is cloudy and builder.

“This color should not be,” he says. For him, this indicates the surface flow of sediments – and possibly skiing. These are the chemicals used in construction to connect the soil and prevent corrosion, but if it escapes to the water system, they can create sludge.

QTS says its data centers meet high environmental standards and offer millions of local tax revenues.

While construction is often carried out by third -party contractors, it is the local population who left to deal with the consequences.

“They shouldn’t do it,” says Rogers. “The owner of the largest wealthy property does not have more than a smaller and richer property owner.”

Technology giants say they are aware of issues and take measures.

“Our goal is that by 2030, we will return more water to the water gatherings and societies in which we run data centers, which we take out,” says Will Hues, the Amazon Web Services Supervision Command.

AWS is investing in projects such as leakage reforms, rainwater harvesting, and the use of wastewater for cooling. In Virginia, the company works with farmers to reduce nutrient pollution in Cispick Bay, the largest in the United States.

In South Africa and India – AWS does not use water for cooling – the company still invests in water and quality access initiatives.

In the Americas, Mr. Hughes says, water is used only in about 10 % of the hottest days every year.

However, the numbers add up. One of the artificial intelligence query – for example, ChatGPT – it can use it around the largest possible number of water like a small bottle you buy from the corner store. Hit it with billions of inquiries a day, and the scale becomes clear.

Professor Rajev Graji knows the cloud computing at Emory University in Atlanta. He says these databases do not disappear – if there is anything, they have become the backbone of modern life.

“There is no return back.”

But there is a way forward. The key is long -term thinking: the most intelligent cooling systems, rainwater harvesting, and the most efficient infrastructure.

In the short term, data centers will create a “huge strain”, as it admits. But the industry has begun to turn towards sustainability.

However, this is a small consolation for home owners such as Beverly Morris – stuck between yesterday’s dream and the infrastructure of tomorrow.

Data centers are more than just a industry trend – they are now part of national policy. President Donald Trump has recently pledged to build the largest infrastructure project for Amnesty International in history, describing it as “an American data -backed future.”

Once again in Georgia, the sun excels through thick moisture – reminding why the country is very attractive to the developers of the data center.

For the local population, the future of technology is already here. It is high, thirsty, and sometimes it is difficult to live next to it.

With the growth of artificial intelligence, the challenge is clear: how to run the world of digital tomorrow without depleting the basic supplier for all -.