AI’s thirst for water has quickly achieved a sort of folk status, from memes online to protests against the data centres. But tech companies claim AI can help solve the world’s problems, including climate change.
What is the real impact of AI data centres on climate and the environment? And how reliable are the tech industry’s claims?
Background: A data with destiny?
The Labour government has supported AI on the promise of economic growth, blessing data centres as “critical national infrastructure”, creating “AI growth zones”, and signing a (currently shelved) “tech prosperity deal” with the U.S.
But the attempt to make the UK an “AI superpower” faces growing opposition from Labour MPs and campaigners over its resource consumption and climate impact.
Data centres are large warehouses full of computers which store and process information. There are around 500 data centres in the UK, with hundreds more planned in the next few years.
The UK has said it needs at least 6 gigawatts (GW) of new AI data centre capacity by 2030, which is three times what it has now, (roughly 1.8 GW). It is argued that this would provide high-quality processing power, support AI technologies, and allow the UK to regulate the data centres.
But critics say this would blow a hole in the UK’s climate targets, and use water and energy which could be better used elsewhere.
What are AI data centres’ climate impact?
Data centres use a huge amount of energy. In July, energy regulator Ofgem said there were 315 data centre projects waiting to be connected to the electricity grid, with a total capacity of 73 GW. For context, average electricity demand for the whole of the UK in 2025 was 37 GW. In other words, the data centres could overwhelm the grid.
They also, famously, need a lot of water to cool their machines. By some estimates, a typical data centre can use 11-19 million litres of water per day, roughly the same as a town of 30-50,000 people.
Water industry trade body Water UK wrote to MPs this summer to warn that the country does not have enough water for the data centres being proposed. This is especially relevant when climate change is causing hosepipe bans and droughts across the UK.
The data centres also have an important carbon footprint. For example, a proposed “hyperscale” (read: very big) East Havering data centre in North Ockendon would produce more than 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year, the equivalent of 8,480 flights from London to New York. The project’s own developer admitted that the project “does not align with a science-based 1.5C compatible trajectory and achieving net zero by 2050”.
Analysis by non-profit Foxglove finds that two planned data centres – Wapseys Wood in Buckinghamshire and Quest Park in Bedfordshire – would emit a total of 4.5 million tonnes of CO2, more than U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil’s entire emissions for 2023 (3.9 million tonnes).
In April, the UK government said energy use by AI data centres could emit 123 million tonnes of CO2 over the next ten years – as much as 2.7 million people. This was a revision of earlier government numbers, which underestimated the emissions by a factor of more than 100.
This could still be low-balling it. Analysis by climate outlet Carbon Brief suggests that data centres could produce 20 percent of the UK’s emissions by 2035, the equivalent of a third of all UK households.
Will AI ‘solve’ climate change?
Tech companies defend data centre emissions by claiming that AI will solve climate change by various kinds of efficiency. However, these claims are not supported by evidence. In March, a study of the industry’s claims of AI climate benefits found that only a quarter cited any published academic research, while more than a third (36 percent) did not present any evidence at all.
The industry has also argued that data centres help to speed up electrification and the transition to renewables. But in practice, gas-fired power plants are being used, revamped, and built to power data centres across the United States and Europe – increasing AI’s emissions, and giving gas a new lease on life. More than 100 of the data centres planned for the UK will be powered by gas, according to Ofgem.
Meanwhile, tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s carbon emissions have increased by a fifth in the year to March 2026, largely due to the energy needs of their AI products. Companies have also watered down or dropped their climate targets.
If the goal is to electrify and cut emissions, it would be better to focus on building infrastructure for solar and wind power, heat pumps, and electric vehicles, rather than AI data centres which harm the climate, and which the public increasingly views as part of an anti-democratic trend in society and politics.
What happens next?
Plans to build “hyperscale” data centres in Scotland have prompted large protests and political opposition of the kind we have seen in the U.S. The Scottish parliament will face a big demonstration when it returns from summer recess in September. Ministers in Scotland are taking note, with new rules for data centres to submit an “environmental impact assessment” as a first step. There have been calls for a New York-style moratorium on new data centres.
This opposition could spread to the rest of the UK, where the government’s support for AI could bump into its housing plans. The decision by the new Andy Burnham team to build a data centre in Brick Lane instead of hundreds of homes has met local opposition. Labour MPs have already raised concerns about AI data centres being left out of the UK’s carbon budget. If the U.S. is a sign of things to come, we can expect this opposition to grow into a major election issue. ■
About the author: Adam Barnett is UK News Reporter at DeSmog and a freelance journalist. He writes a politics column for the Big Issue and has reported for The Guardian and Private Eye
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