For decades, California’s water debates have centered on a familiar tension: agriculture versus urban consumption. Agriculture, which consumes 80% of the state’s developed water supply, has long dominated discussions about conservation and efficiency. Yet, a new contender is emerging, one poised to dwarf agriculture in water demand and reshape the state’s water future: artificial intelligence (AI). … For decades, agriculture has been framed as the primary focus of water conservation efforts, with farmers frequently cast as both stewards and villains of California’s strained water resources. While agriculture dominates the present, the future tells a different story. AI, fueled by data centers housing millions of servers, is on a trajectory to become a massive water consumer. These data centers rely heavily on water-intensive cooling systems to maintain the functionality of high-performance chips that power AI applications.
—Written by Dean Florez, past senator from Central Valley and a member of the California Air Resources Board