Why people are throwing AI data centers into the ocean

Every time you type a request into ChatGPT, the servers processing it guzzle water and electricity. Engineers are trying to fix this by building data centers underwater and are even trying to shoot them into space. But does that work? #Planet A #AI #DataCenters Credits: Reporter: Alexandria Williams Co-author: Daniel Plafker Video Editor: David Jacobi Supervising Editor: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann Fact Check: Jeanette Cwienk Thumbnail: Em Chabridon Thank you for background interviews to: Nidhal Jegham Read more: How Hungry is AI? Benchmarking Energy, Water, and Carbon Footprint of LLM Inference: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.09598 How Hungry is AI? Power BI Dashboard: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZjVmOTI0MmMtY2U2Mi00ZTE2LTk2MGYtY2ZjNDMzODZkMjlmIiwidCI6IjQyNmQyYThkLTljY2QtNDI1NS04OTNkLTA2ODZhMzJjMTY4ZCIsImMiOjF9 Making AI Less 'Thirsty': https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3724499 Too many satellites? Earth’s orbit is on track for a catastrophe – but we can stop it: https://theconversation.com/too-many-satellites-earths-orbit-is-on-track-for-a-catastrophe-but-we-can-stop-it-275430 What does DeepSeek mean for AI's environmental impact?: https://www.dw.com/en/what-does-chinas-deepseek-mean-for-ais-energy-and-water-use/a-71459557 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:26 Traditional cooling methods 04:57 Direct-to-chip cooling 06:26 Sinking data centers 09:26 Data centers in space? 10:59 Beyond cooling We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. We'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess. Follow Planet A on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dw_planet