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    [OC] Annual Water Use Comparison between Corn and Data Centers
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    [OC] Annual Water Use Comparison between Corn and Data Centers


    After seeing a Hank Green video, I wanted an apples-to-apples comparison of water use, U.S. data centers vs irrigated corn. So I converted everything into the same units and plotted the gap with the help of energent AI.

    Posted by Open-Ease685

    View 37 Comments

    37 Comments

    1. Forsaken_Care on

      Do you have access to the economic return/impact for each of these? That would be interesting to plot as a second axis.

    8. aldwinligaya on

      Oh, you actually meant corn.

      I thought… the bigger portion is the data centers for “corn”.

    10. sirawesomeson on

      This whole argument is absurd, two things can be true and both can be problems worth addressing. Water use in chip manufacturing is a major challenge, water use in power plants requires significant attention and planning, water use in cooling can be significant and potentially change the ecology of the reservoir when the water temperature changes. Evaporative losses in reservoirs are not all the same and each location needs to account for their circumstances.

      We also grow an excessive amount of corn that is inefficiently used for ethanol and animal feed. Both are problems that should be and are actively being addressed. Saying that one isn’t a problem because the other should be solved is counter productive.

    11. Magic_Neil on

      Corn feeds people, or it feeds animals that feed people. It might even be turned into fuel.

      Some datacenters provide critical services and help drive innovation. The datacenters that are going up now? They feed AI shenanigans and crypto BS. There is a LOT of compute in the world, and most of the new stuff is going to foolish endeavors.

      I’m a server guy.. I like servers, and I like working on them. I like corn more.

    12. HarlequinKOTF on

      Corn is incredibly inefficient yes. That doesn’t make data centers good uses of water. They are *less* water hungry but comparing them directly gallon to gallon isn’t a fair comparison since they aren’t on anywhere near the same scale. Comparing by gallons per acre would be more effective since it would standardize the unit being compared. One data center compared to one field of equivalent size.

      Also, I can’t say I like the ai being used to make a graph but appreciate the disclaimer so I can take a spoonful of salt.

      Edit: for those down voting i did some preliminary research. Corn uses approximately 680,000 gallons of water per acre annually. https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/water-corn-growth.html#:~:text=Approximately%20400%2C000%20gallons%20of%20water,evaporates%20from%20the%20soil%20surface.

      Data centers can use around a wide range depending on their size and age but focusing on the one in Mount Pleasant (135 acre facility https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/milwaukee/news/2025/11/12/microsoft-data-center-mount-pleasant) is estimated to use 8.4 million gallons per year. https://www.wpr.org/news/microsoft-data-centers-8-million-gallons-water-each-year which when converted to gallons per acre is:

      Corn : 680,000 gallons per acre per year

      Mount Pleasant DC : 62,222.22 gallons per acre per year

      It’s certainly more efficient than corn irrigation but not as rosy as the data presented in this post makes it out to be.

    14. Frederf220 on

      Which “water”? Potable water? Agricultural water? Rain water? River water? Reservoir water? Gray water? Reclaimed water? Treated water?

    16. SurlyCricket on

      I’d like to add the beef industry to this chart. The numbers I read were nearly 100/1 but that was like a year ago

    17. PatExMachina on

      Anything generated by AI does not belong in this sub. Also post sources. Where is this data coming from?

      Edit: Spelling lol

    19. atrib on

      What i don’t get is how is indirect bad? Like in hydro electric plant? It doesnt make water ran through it unusable after or anything like that? Only thing we doing is exploiting the travel of water from high ground to low ground like it would do anyways

    20. papiforyou on

      Corn feeds people and livestock. Data centers create slop that takes jobs and ruins the internet.

    25. JackBinimbul on

      This is apples and oranges, except at least both apples and oranges are edible.

      Corn production in the US is ridiculous, but comparing these two things is incredibly asinine.

    26. greenmachine11235 on

      Except it’s not apples to apples. Corn doesn’t use city drinking water to irrigate corn, data centers do for cooling. 

    28. Ser_Balerion on

      “Powered by emergent.ai”

      Sureeeee Emergent. Get us looking at corn and not you for high water usage.

      I’m picturing Emergent 100% made this post on its own.

    30. Varnu on

      Why even list “indirect” though? What’s the indirect water use of anything we buy? What’s the indirect water use of taking a shower vs the water used in taking a shower? We don’t talk about indirect water use in ANY other context except for this one, because unless we do so it’s completely trivial.

    33. darien_gap on

      Based on all of the “you can’t eat data centers” type comments, might be helpful to show within the green rectangle how much is for human consumption, livestock feed, and ethanol. And clarification about whether these corn gallons are the irrigated or both irrigated and non-irrigated corn.

    35. jawdirk on

      Imagine how many data centers we could have, if we just got rid of all of this corn farming. WTF is that for anyway? Isn’t corn one of the shittiest commodities? On the other hand, data centers provide necessary resources for AI, the foundation of our economy!

    37. robbie_the_cat on

      And corn feeds us, and provides fuel to an astonishing degree. What tangible benefit do the data centers provide?