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Panic over data centers is wildly exaggerated — they use less water than golf courses and less energy than the USA’s fridges

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Data centers have become the chic new enemy among activists.

Critics claim the centers are using inordinate amounts of electricity and water to power artificial intelligence, inspiring protesters to take to the streets and Democratic lawmakers to head to Albany to stymie their development.

However, some experts say the anti-data center push is more of a moral panic than an empirical one, often based on speculative and sometimes bunk projections.

It seems that data centers are the boogeyman onto which larger fears about the impact of AI are being projected.

“The estimates of future data-center development may be overestimated by a factor of three to five,” Jonathan Koomey, an energy researcher who has been studying data-center electricity usage for decades, told The Post. “It is not as simple as saying, ‘We don’t want data centers to use water.’ You have to think about the trade-offs.”

Concerns about data centers have largely centered around the idea that they are massive guzzlers of energy and water, which (alongside aircon) is used to cool banks of servers and electical equipment.

Worries about water consumption have been popularized via an oft-repeated statistic about the water consumption of a Chilean data center from journalist Karen Hao’s book, “Empire of AI.” The only problem: Hao had accidentally exaggerated the water usage by a factor of 1,000.

According to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, just 0.2% of New York state’s water and 3.5% of the state’s electricity were used by data centers in 2025.

David Mytton, a researcher of sustainable........

© New York Post