In a cheeky advertising marketing campaign, Liquid Loss of life teamed up with former Philadelphia Eagles star Jason Kelce to share an answer to mitigate the environmental impression of AI knowledge facilities, which require huge portions of water to stop servers from overheating.
“AI knowledge facilities waste hundreds of thousands of gallons of water,” Kelce quips within the video marketing campaign. “That’s why Liquid Loss of life and Storage Beer have teamed up. We would like your pee to chill these knowledge facilities.”
Then, as a crowd of individuals stroll by means of a area sipping their branded drinks, they sing in unison: “Let’s pee on computer systems collectively to save lots of humanity!”
It’s a humorous industrial. What’s even funnier is that Kelce has unwittingly stumbled upon an actual tactic for cooling down knowledge facilities.
“The Liquid Loss of life industrial is humorous and tongue-in-cheek,” Michael Obradovitch, vp of Knowledge Middle International Accounts at Ecolab, instructed Trendster. “However in actuality, there’s a truthful quantity of other water sources already getting used to an analogous extent to chill these knowledge facilities.”
These various water sources, when utilized in knowledge facilities, no less than partially offset the demand for potable ingesting water. One such various water supply is recycled water, which is made by treating wastewater and sewage water in order that they’re protected to make use of once more. Wastewater and sewage water include many issues, together with — you guessed it! — human urine.
“You wouldn’t simply use pee, however you may clear it and make it into helpful water, and that’s what we advocate,” Bruno Pigott, govt director of the WateReuse Affiliation and former appearing assistant administrator in water for the U.S. Environmental Safety Company (EPA), instructed Trendster.
To be clear: You shouldn’t really contribute gallons of your pee to assist cool knowledge facilities, as Kelce facetiously suggests. However only for the sake of the thought experiment: What would occur in case you did attempt to cool a knowledge middle with a gradual stream of pee?
“Pee accommodates all kinds of stuff. It accommodates salts, it accommodates urea, micro organism, natural matter of all kinds that may depart mineral deposits. For those who simply put that right into a cooling tower or one thing else, it could require fixed cleansing,” stated Pigott. “One of many strategies of cooling is named evaporative cooling, the place sizzling air is handed by means of water to take away warmth by means of evaporation. Are you able to think about in case you simply poured urine by means of sizzling air?”
We do have the know-how to show our urine into potable ingesting water — that’s what astronauts do in house, since they will solely deliver a lot water with them on their spacecraft. However that isn’t environment friendly at a big scale, and even when it have been, it’s not like scientists can simply entry hundreds of thousands of gallons of pee at will (nicely, not except Kelce actually commits to the bit). As an alternative, our bathroom water leads to wastewater and sewage.
That’s the place water remedy amenities are available, offering recycled water to spare us from the scent of evaporated urine. These amenities use membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet gentle, and different processes to deal with water till it’s clear sufficient for industrial use. In some instances, this water may even be handled to the purpose that it’s drinkable.
“We use recycled water for cooling for every kind of industries, and now we have for many years,” Dr. Greta Zornes, observe chief for water reuse on the engineering agency CDM Smith, instructed Trendster. “So this is just one software, however undoubtedly, there’s been a increase in recycled water for knowledge middle cooling.”
Although Zornes has labored on water reuse know-how for greater than twenty years, her day-to-day work has shifted with the rising demand for knowledge facilities.
“Daily proper now, I’m engaged on recycled water for knowledge facilities,” she stated.
When knowledge facilities use extra recycled water, they don’t pose as a lot of a burden to the native potable water provide. However industries can solely pivot to recycled water use when there’s correct infrastructure in place to deal with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water daily.
“You need to be considerably close to a waste water remedy facility that’s sizable sufficient that you’ve sufficient water to make use of,” Zornes stated. “So when knowledge facilities exit into rural areas, numerous occasions the wastewater remedy crops simply aren’t large enough — they’re not treating sufficient water for them to have the ability to take it and deal with it and use it.”
Loudoun County, Virginia, situated exterior of Washington, D.C., is residence to greater than 250 knowledge facilities, with plans to assemble no less than one other two dozen. As of 2025, Loudoun knowledge facilities collectively used about 200 million gallons of recycled water every day, however the water footprint of those knowledge facilities is so excessive that this solely accounts for 43% of each day knowledge middle water utilization within the space. The opposite 260 million gallons, or 57% of each day knowledge middle water utilization, come from potable water provides, based on Loudoun Water.
“There’s numerous infrastructure that must be constructed out and often isn’t current immediately, and that takes time,” Zornes stated. “That’s one of many issues — it’s simply the time that it takes to get that completed.”
Obradovitch thinks that the AI business may even drive assets towards constructing out this sort of infrastructure to scale water remedy. Meta, for instance, will make investments no less than $270 million in wastewater infrastructure initiatives close to its knowledge facilities (the corporate additionally loses about $4 billion every quarter on its Actuality Labs division).
“That’s the place knowledge facilities can really are available and be anchors of water infrastructure,” Obradovitch stated. “There’s quite a lot of instances and examples the place knowledge facilities, as a part of their engagement with communities, have dedicated funding and capital to a few of these municipalities to assist in addressing a few of these precise challenges.”
On the coverage facet, Pigott is advocating for laws that would supply a 30% tax credit score to assist industries scale their recycled water infrastructure.
“We expect it could vastly speed up the tempo with which knowledge facilities and different industries entered into this space,” he stated.
Whereas there’s some unintentional science behind Liquid Loss of life’s joke, the industrial and its virality function a reminder to the tech business that the environmental calls for of knowledge facilities have change into a mainstream concern. In line with a current Gallup ballot, about seven out of 10 People oppose knowledge facilities of their communities, and AI merchandise proceed to face backlash from shoppers who really feel as if the know-how is being pressured into their lives.
“I’m glad that persons are involved about water, and something that raises consciousness of water, nevertheless crude it could be, may really be helpful,” Pigott stated. “It provides us an opportunity to teach the general public about what we’re doing immediately.”
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