Center for Water Policy’s Professor Scanlan Answers AI-Data Center FAQs with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Construction work takes place on a portion of land between Walnut and Larrison roads and north of Early Road on an $11 billion Amazon Web Services data center campus on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, between South Bend and New Carlisle. ©USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Here at the Center, we get a lot of questions about AI-data centers: how do they consume water? How does their water consumption compare to other industries? Does the Great Lakes Compact regulate their water use? The Center for Water Policy and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel collaborated to answer these questions — and more!  

Check them out on our YouTube channel:

  1. How do AI-data centers consume water? 
  1. Can we put 228 billion gallons consumed by data centers in 2023 into context? 
  1. Does closed loop cooling consume less water than evaporative cooling of AI-data centers? 
  1. How does water consumption by AI-data centers compare to other industries? 
  1. How would you establish an independent process to evaluate the impacts of hosting AI-data centers? 
  1. Does the Great Lakes Compact regulate water use by AI-data centers? 
  1. Is there a real threat of the Great Lakes being completely drained by AI-data centers? 
  1. How can policies be designed to protect the public interest when hosting AI-data centers? 

  Videos by Bill Schulz / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.