Nothing Is Being Built Yet At “AI” Meta Data Center In Davenport

It was in May of 2024 that the city of Davenport announced a large data center was going to be built on open land in the Northwest side of town.

Now, nearly 2 years later, nothing is there. As AI caricatures fill up your timeline, the concern of a new data center coming in and consuming resources like fresh water has citizens questioning if this being built will add any value to the community at all.

Every Data Center Uses Water To Cool

Maybe it's because the use of AI (especially on social media) has skyrocketed over the past few years, but more and more people are realizing that the use of AI takes a lot of computing power.  The way these servers are cooled is with water.  Fresh, drinkable by humans, water.

Large data centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day.  The proposed data center in Davenport will sit on 328 acres.  Not all of that will be servers, but that is still a large area.  Depending on how many servers are in the buildings and what they are doing, the data center could use between 1 million and 3 million gallons of water daily.

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This is one of the reasons you have probably seen people lately saying, "Don't use AI cause it uses all this water."  These people aren't wrong, but they aren't right.

Every bit of data you use is coming from a server farm somewhere that is using water.  So yes, when you post "AI is wasting water" on social media, you are using water by using social media.

It doesn't stop there.  Every show you stream, every app you use, every purchase you make online is using water.

Will A Meta Data Center Be Built In Davenport?

Even though it was announced 2 years ago, many people are just hearing about it...and of course posting about it and complaining about it on Facebook.

Insert cricket noises here.  Cause so far, nothing is being built.  But, they own the land in the northwest corner of Hillandale Road and Enterprise Way.  So it could be built at any time.

If built, it would use all the water and a terawatt of electricity a day, creating 35 jobs in the area.  Yep...35.

At this point, there might be nothing citizens can do to stop the inevitable from happening.  The land is bought, and the project is approved.  If Meta needs it, they will build it.  But the company is all about making money...so maybe someone (or many people) could buy it back from them at an inflated price of what they paid.

In the meantime, if you want to make a difference in water and electricity use, stop using AI and stick with good ol' over-the-air radio.  Thank you.