Microsoft, Meta and others face rising drought risk to their data centers
Summary
Drought conditions are worsening in the U.S., and that is having an outsized impact on the real estate that houses the internet. "There is, without a doubt, risk if youre dependent on water," said Kyle Myers, vice president of environmental health, safety & sustainability at CyrusOne, which owns and operates over 40 data centers in North America, Europe, and South America. CyrusOne is formerly a REIT, but was purchased this year by investment firms KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners. When the company moved into the drought-stricken Phoenix area, it used a different, albeit more expensive method of cooling. "The good news is weve been investing for years in ongoing innovation in this space so that fundamentally we can recycle almost all of the water we use in our data centers," said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.
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