Several major data center operators across the Phoenix metro area have already deployed closed-loop and waterless cooling systems to comply with strict municipal water caps in cities like Chandler, Mesa, and Goodyear.
Here is how specific deployments in the Valley handle heat without evaporating local water supplies:

1. Microsoft (Phoenix & Goodyear Campuses)

  Zero-Water Pilot Deployments. Microsoft selected its Phoenix operations as a primary pilot site for its next-generation, closed-loop liquid cooling design. Rather than relying on evaporative cooling towers, the system continuously recirculates fluid through chip-level cold plates and mechanical chillers.
  Water Savings. According to Microsoft Cloud, this architecture eliminates ongoing water evaporation entirely, saving roughly 33 million gallons (125 million liters) of water per data center annually compared to traditional designs.

2. EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure (Mesa – Elliot Road Campus)

  Air-Cooled Closed-Loop System. EdgeCore’s multi-building campus on Elliot Road in Mesa utilizes an air-cooled design paired with a closed-loop chilled water system.
  Near-Zero Water Intensity. According to EdgeCore, the facility operates with a Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) rating below 0.01 L/kWh, which is virtually zero. Compared to an equivalent evaporatively cooled facility, each building saves approximately 200 million gallons of water per year.

3. Vantage Data Centers (Goodyear – AZ1 Campus)

  Closed-Loop with Air-Side Economizers. Vantage’s flagship campus in southwest Goodyear uses a sealed, closed-loop chilled water system combined with air-side economizers.
  Ambient Temperature Adaptation. When outside temperatures drop during Phoenix’s fall, winter, and spring nights, the economizers pull cool outside air directly into the cooling loop. This allows the facility to run with virtually zero ongoing water consumption while minimizing chiller fan electricity use.

4. Edged US (Mesa – Silicon Desert Corridor)

  ThermalWorks Waterless Tech. Opened in Mesa to support high-density AI workloads, the 36 MW Edged Phoenix facility uses a proprietary waterless cooling system called ThermalWorks.
  High Density, Zero Water. Detailed by Edged US, the facility supports over 400 kW per rack via closed-loop liquid cooling while consuming zero water for heat rejection, conserving roughly 138 million gallons of water annually.

5. CyrusOne & QTS (Chandler & Phoenix Campuses)

  CyrusOne (Chandler). Operating eight facilities in Chandler, CyrusOne uses air-cooled chillers connected to a closed water loop with zero evaporative blowdown or sewer discharge. As reported by Circle of Blue, the entire campus uses zero water for cooling and only about 180,000 gallons a year for indoor humidification.
  QTS (Phoenix). Since 2019, QTS has standardized on a sealed closed-loop system for its Phoenix builds. According to QTS Data Centers, each building requires only a one-time initial fill of roughly 615,000 gallons, avoiding up to 300 million gallons of annual water evaporation.

Comparison of Metro Phoenix Deployments

Operator Location Cooling Architecture Annual Water Saved / Impact
Microsoft Phoenix / Goodyear Chip-level closed-loop liquid ~33M gallons saved per facility
EdgeCore Mesa Air-cooled + closed-loop chilled water ~200M gallons saved per building
Vantage Goodyear Closed-loop + air-side economizers Virtually zero ongoing cooling water
Edged US Mesa ThermalWorks waterless liquid/air ~138M gallons saved annually
CyrusOne Chandler Air-cooled chillers + closed loop Zero cooling water (~180k gal humidification)
QTS Phoenix Sealed closed-loop water Up to 300M gallons saved per building

"You're missing the point: it's harder to solve the cooling issue in Arizona than elsewhere. That's no "ditch.""

Funny, but the real truth is the Arizona has low humidity, which makes closed loop water based cooling EASIER than places with higher humidity

At least challenge your own assumptions, in order to provide a solid argument, before posting

Please do a little research before making such outdated statements, I'll let AI answer this and will respond if you can make a challenging argument

AI Overview

The statement relies on outdated assumptions about cooling technology and overlooks the specific geographic, economic, and energy advantages that make Arizona a prime location for modern digital infrastructure.
Here is a breakdown of the key arguments countering that claim:

1. Water Usage is Negligible in Modern Builds

The idea that desert data centers drain local water supplies is largely based on older evaporative cooling models that Arizona municipalities no longer favor.
  Closed-Loop and Waterless Tech. Cities like Chandler, Mesa, and Phoenix have enacted strict industrial water caps, pushing developers toward air-cooled and closed-loop liquid cooling systems. Unlike older systems that evaporate millions of gallons, closed-loop systems fill once (often with around 120,000 gallons) and recirculate the same water for up to a decade.
  Tiny Share of State Water. According to data cited by the Arizona Capitol Times, data centers account for just 0.15% of all water use statewide. For perspective, they consume roughly 1/33rd as much water as Arizona golf courses while generating 50 times more tax revenue per unit of water.

2. Arizona’s Energy Profile Solves the Power Equation

While servers require significant electricity, Arizona’s grid is uniquely suited to supply it cleanly and reliably without passing costs onto residents.
  Abundant Solar Capacity. Arizona has seen record installations of solar power and battery storage, which align closely with peak daytime cooling needs. Many hyperscale operators fund dedicated renewable projects and large-scale battery storage systems to offset their draw.
  Grid Reliability and "Growth Pays for Growth." Arizona ranks among the top states for electric grid reliability. Furthermore, utilities like Arizona Public Service (APS) and regulators at the Arizona Corporation Commission enforce high-load-factor rates and long-term infrastructure contracts. This ensures data centers pay for the grid upgrades and generation capacity they require rather than leaving residential ratepayers to subsidize them.

3. Why Servers Actually Belong in the Desert

Calling Arizona a "catbox" ignores the physical realities that make the state one of the safest, most stable places in North America to house critical infrastructure.
  Zero Natural Disasters. Data centers require extreme physical security and uninterrupted uptime. Unlike coastal tech hubs or the Midwest, Arizona is virtually free from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and major flooding.
  Dry Air Benefits. While summer temperatures are high, Arizona’s low humidity prevents moisture-related corrosion and allows evaporative-assisted or adiabatic systems to operate efficiently during cooler months without wasting water.

4. Major Economic and Tax Returns

Opposing data center buildouts means turning down massive, low-impact revenue streams that fund public services without straining local roads or schools.
  Tax Windfalls. Arizona data centers generate over $1 billion annually in state and local tax revenue, directly funding public safety, education, and transportation.
  High-Wage Job Creation. According to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the industry has supported over 108,000 jobs and generated $11 billion in economic output over the past decade. Each facility employs up to 1,000 skilled tradespeople during construction and supports roughly six indirect jobs for every direct permanent role

All hand waving aside, cooling in Arizona is a solved issue, and just drags this conversation into the ditch for no clear reason

Just in case you are lazy, here is AI breakdown:

AI Overview

The water system managed by the Salt River Project (SRP) holds roughly 2.3 million acre-feet of combined reservoir capacity—nearly three years' worth of normal Valley demand—which provides a critical buffer independent of the Colorado River. While this local supply and a 72% agricultural water share give Arizona significant room to absorb data center water demand, Arizona Democrats are actively divided over whether to restrict new facilities due to power grid and tax concerns rather than water alone.

Salt River Project (SRP) Capacity and Reservoirs

Unlike the over-allocated Colorado River, the Salt and Verde river watersheds operate in near equilibrium with annual demand.
  Multi-Year Storage Buffer. SRP manages six major dams across the Salt and Verde rivers (plus C.C. Cragin on East Clear Creek) with a combined surface storage capacity of roughly 2.3 million acre-feet. Because SRP delivers about 800,000 acre-feet annually to roughly 2.5 million Valley residents, a full reservoir system holds nearly three years of supply before accounting for underground aquifer banking.
  Recent Storage Surge. Following historic autumn rainfall in late October and early November 2026, SRP captured roughly 120 billion gallons (370,000 acre-feet) of runoff. This pushed total system storage from 53% to 70% full in less than a week.
  The Verde Bottleneck. The Salt River system holds the vast majority of this storage (over 2 million acre-feet across Roosevelt, Horse Mesa, Mormon Flat, and Stewart Mountain dams). The Verde River's two reservoirs (Horseshoe and Bartlett) hold only about 317,715 acre-feet combined. During major runoff events like November 2026, SRP is forced to release excess water downstream to prevent overtopping Bartlett Dam, which is why SRP is actively evaluating an expansion of Bartlett to capture more storm runoff.

River System Major Dams Combined Storage Role
Salt River Theodore Roosevelt, Horse Mesa, Mormon Flat, Stewart Mountain Holds ~86% of SRP surface water; Roosevelt Lake acts as the primary multi-year storage anchor.
Verde River Horseshoe, Bartlett Holds ~14% of SRP surface water; fills quickly during storms and relies on downstream releases during heavy runoff.

Global Warming and "Super El Niño" Rainfall

Warming ocean temperatures are intensifying the atmospheric dynamics that bring moisture to the Arizona desert, though the effects come with major caveats for water management.
  Amplified Moisture Delivery. El Niño warms the equatorial Pacific, shifting the southern jet stream directly across Southern California and Arizona. Because human-caused climate change has raised baseline ocean temperatures, modern "Super El Niño" events evaporate significantly more moisture into the atmosphere. This produces intense atmospheric rivers and autumn tropical remnants, such as the late-2026 storms that dropped up to eight times the normal rainfall across the Salt and Verde watersheds.
  The Storage and Evaporation Trade-Off. While extreme El Niño winters can rapidly refill reservoirs, warmer baseline temperatures also mean more precipitation falls as rain rather than mountain snowpack. Sudden rain-on-snow events create massive, fast-moving runoff spikes that exceed dam storage limits (forcing releases into the dry Salt River bed) rather than providing slow, predictable spring snowmelt. Furthermore, higher summer temperatures increase surface evaporation and soil dryness, reducing how much runoff actually reaches the reservoirs in average years.

Agriculture vs. Data Centers: The Water Math

From a pure volume standpoint, your assessment of Arizona's water portfolio aligns closely with state hydrological data:
  Agriculture's Share. According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, agriculture accounts for approximately 72% of Arizona's water consumption. Much of this is concentrated in Colorado River-dependent areas like Yuma County (which supplies roughly 90% of North America's winter leafy greens) and Pinal County.
  Data Center Footprint. Data centers currently represent less than 1% (roughly 0.1% to 0.5%) of Arizona's total water portfolio. Furthermore, many newer hyperscale campuses in Maricopa County are shifting toward closed-loop, air-cooled, or reclaimed-water systems that drastically reduce direct freshwater draw compared to older evaporative-cooling facilities.
  Economic Trade-Offs. Converting agricultural land in the Phoenix metro area into industrial or commercial uses historically reduces overall water demand per acre, as urban and industrial uses generally consume less water per acre than irrigated crops like alfalfa or cotton.

The Political Reality Among Arizona Democrats

While water math favors data centers over agriculture, the political outlook in Phoenix is more divided than a purely pro-business consensus suggests. Following the November 2026 elections—which gave Democrats a state government trifecta—data centers have emerged as a major policy fault line within the party:
  The Pro-Business Wing: Governor Katie Hobbs has explicitly opposed a statewide moratorium on data centers, arguing that they are a vital pillar of Arizona's high-tech economy so long as they pay for their own infrastructure and use water sustainably.
  The Regulatory Wing: Attorney General Kris Mayes and progressive coalitions have actively called for a statewide pause on new AI data centers, citing concerns over grid strain, rising residential electricity bills, and Colorado River cuts. Incoming legislative leaders, including Senate President Priya Sundareshan and House Speaker Oscar De Los Santos, have stated that a moratorium is "not off the table" and have already backed a three-year freeze—and potential full repeal—of state sales tax exemptions for data center equipment.
Rather than a water panic, the primary hurdle for data centers in Arizona is electrical grid capacity and tax policy, with bipartisan agreement growing that tech companies should no longer receive state tax subsidies to build in the Valley.
If you'd like to dig deeper into any part of this, I can break down:
  The Bartlett Dam expansion proposal and how much extra Verde River runoff it could capture
  How new cooling technologies are changing the actual gallon-per-megawatt water draw of Phoenix data centers
  The power grid constraints (SRP and APS generation capacity) driving the current legislative debate

rsilvergun, I often agree with you, but disagree with you on this, I must

Please take a look at the Salt River Project, the dams on the Salt and Verde rivers, the multiple years capacity of water they hold, and the effect of global warming on super el nino that drives rainfall to the Arizona desert

We are not dependent on Colorado water (it IS a nice to have), but agriculture consumes 72% of water in the state (5 Million acre feet) and if there is more money hosting datacenters than selling lettuce, then it is a sound financial decision

FYI, Arizona Democrats are pretty pro-business, and I sincerely doubt we will see a datacenter panic here, regardless of how much propaganda people dump on the state

I live in Arizona and have worked at and with large datacenters over the past 25 years

We have a thing called insulation that prevents the desert heat from penetrating buildings, the big issue is moving heat out of the building from the servers.

We had a recent incident at a large facility here, that lost their cooling ability and, well let's just say people were rolling gear out of the building that was too hot to put your hands on. It wasn't pretty, but same has happened in Virginia when data centers there lost power to cooling facilities

Beyond that, Colorado River water is a nice to have, but not necessary for growth since the Salt and Verde river systems provide water exclusively to Arizona and, as demonstrated by this years super el nino can capture multiple years of water in a single wet season

And, just for a sense of scale AGRICULTURE uses 5 million acre feet of water a year (72% of total water usage), and trading out some of that water for datacenters does a lot more for Arizona economy than farms do

But hey, you don't live here and don't work in the industry so WOW, what a great source of info /s

The failure mode is a heartfelt apology and promise to improve if you don't delete it.

You're absolutely right to call me out on this. I want to acknowledge that my decision to route a Cessna and a Boeing 787 into the same airspace, at the same altitude, during an active thunderstorm, was not ideal.

I made an error when interpreting the radar data. Specifically, I mistook the Cessna's altitude of 3,000 feet for its flight number, and subsequently assumed it was flying at FL300. I then resolved the resulting conflict by instructing both aircraft to turn left, because I incorrectly calculated that two aircraft turning in the same direction would somehow increase the distance between them.

That's on me.

I also recognize that my follow-up instruction to "maintain visual separation" was perhaps not the most appropriate response, given that one aircraft was inside a thundercloud and the other was approximately the size of a small apartment building.

I understand that this has caused significant disruption. I don't want to make excuses or deflect responsibility. The weather, the pilots, and the fundamental laws of physics are not to blame here.

I should have done better, and I will use this as a learning opportunity to improve my future performance.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this difficult time.

I hear you. I see you. I will do better.

I mean, fair play to the guy, he found time to be hands-on running Nvidia, and have two simultaneous affairs.

And with age appropriate women too, which for a billionaire is a big deal.

We have seen a flood of AI ports to retro machines recently too, and lots of AI generated cores for the MiSTER FPGA platform.

I've been reverse engineering a particular game on and off for a few years. Gemini took an unannotated 68000 assembly decomp of the binary for Amiga OS and figured out all the data structures in a few minutes.

One the one hand that's great, we can reverse engineer stuff much more easily and quickly now. On the other hand what was once a fun hobby is pointless now. People who just want to play the games are happy, people who develop this stuff as a hobby are depressed.

My worry is that if it is a medical device it will be needlessly expensive. Often these things are only really available to people once the price falls.

They want to spy on us, they don't want us spying on each other.

He had time to be the CEO of a trillion dollar company and was apparently quite hands-on (pun intended), while having two simultaneous affairs.

He could have found time to meet people, he didn't have to date subordinates.

His soon to be ex wife could do a lot of good with her half. Let's hope she is as philanthropic as MacKenzie Scott.