Vast, humming fortresses of silicon and steel, data centres are the unsung titans, not villains, of our digital age, writes Huw Owen
Data centres are under siege – not from cyberattacks, but from headline writers.
“Thirsty data centres are sucking up Britain’s scarce water supplies,” cried one recent report; another elsewhere warned that the government’s AI ambitions could lead to drinking water shortages.
It reads like a compelling story: monolithic server farms draining rivers while the rest of us brace for hosepipe bans. But it’s also dangerously simplistic, ignoring many of the facts about this fast-growing industry.
How much water do they actually consume?
Data centres are the unsung titans of our digital age: vast, humming fortresses of silicon and steel that power everything from your morning Alexa query to your midnight binge-watch. They are the beating heart of the internet. Like all hearts, they need a well-functioning plumbing system.
Yes, data centres use water. So do football stadiums, farms and fizzy drinks factories. The difference? Data centres are powering the future. From pioneering AI to improving NHS efficiency and productivity, they are the infrastructure behind every digital leap we hope to make. And yet, they are being cast as villains in a crisis not of their making.
Look at the numbers: nearly 10bn litres of water a year are supplied to 231 data centres. That sounds vast, until you realise it’s less than 0.2 per cent of the UK’s total water usage.
Tech UK’s report last week, based on Environment Agency data, showed that 64 per cent of surveyed data centres use less than 10,000m³ of water per year, less than a typical leisure centre.
While some facilities do rely on mains water, many, like Ark’s, use harvested rainwater where possible and thermodynamic cooling systems designed to minimise environmental impact. Inspired by engineering methods pioneered by the Romans, these systems cool fresh air with water. That means no harmful refrigerants, no waste, just fresh air and ancient ingenuity.
In Ark’s latest data centre deployments, a 24 megawatt module, still relatively large in the UK, consumes less water in a year than the average UK household uses in three months.
Bats and data centres can co-exist
We know the government has said it will prioritise “building before bats”, and of course sometimes difficult decisions need to be made that pit nature and development against each other. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. We at Ark have built bat caves, badger setts and conservation zones into our campuses. It’s not just rainwater that we harvest either; this year sees the first crop of honey from our onsite hives. We don’t just work alongside nature – we’re inviting it in.
The real problem isn’t the infrastructure; it’s the digital habits of all of us. Once, we took a photo, printed it and binned the blurry ones. Now, we take five, keep them all and upload them to the cloud – forever. But every digital indulgence has a cost.
There is also a lack of transparency in the water sector. Half of UK water companies couldn’t even say how much water their data centre clients consume. That’s not a tech industry failure; it’s a failure of reporting.
In addition to recently designating the whole data centre sector critical national infrastructure, the government is also keen to support the development of AI Growth zones, underpinning the UK’s AI ambitions, economic expansion and public service reform. This will inevitably necessitate the construction of more data centres, but they must be built responsibly – with environmental safeguards, community engagement and smart water strategies.
If we want AI to crack antibiotic resistance, if we want supercomputers to streamline Whitehall and prosecute people smugglers with forensic precision, then we must embrace data centres not as a necessary evil, but as essential allies. The future is digital. Let’s work to make sure it’s also sustainable.
Huw Owen is CEO of Ark Data Centres Ltd