Every time you ask ChatGPT something, water disappears.
I found this investigating Malaysia’s data center boom. The numbers looked impressive. Investment surged to RM141.72 billion in 2024, tripling from the previous year.
The headlines miss something crucial.
The Hidden Water Crisis Behind Digital Growth
Every megawatt of data center capacity consumes 25.5 million liters of water annually. That’s equivalent to 300,000 people’s daily water needs.
AI makes this exponentially worse. By 2027, AI demand alone will require 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water globally. More than four times Denmark’s total annual consumption.
Malaysia understands this challenge. Johor is Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing data center hub, but water sources can’t keep up.
Turning Sewage Into Digital Infrastructure
Johor turned the problem into opportunity.
The state launched Malaysia’s largest water reclamation project for data centers. Instead of competing with residents for freshwater, facilities now receive 12 million liters daily of treated wastewater.
Bridge Data Centres, Indah Water Konsortium, and Johor Special Water built this system. The reclaimed water serves multiple facilities including Computility Technology and Dayone Data Centre Malaysia II.
This makes environmental sense. Why waste treated effluent when data centers need massive cooling capacity?
Industry Transformation Blueprint
Johor proves sustainable digital infrastructure works.
Traditional data centers create water conflicts. Communities compete with data centers for water. Johor eliminated this by creating dedicated reclaimed water pipelines.
The project supports Malaysia’s goal of supplying 200 million liters daily of reclaimed water by 2030. Malaysia has 7,000 million liters of treatable wastewater – far more than data centers need.
Global Implications
Other regions face the same problem.
Singapore, Netherlands, and the US already have data center water conflicts. Johor’s wastewater-to-cooling model can be copied.
The math works everywhere. Data centers need constant water for cooling. Sewage plants produce constant treated water. Connecting these systems eliminates waste and supports digital growth.
Malaysia turned a problem into an advantage. Will other regions copy this approach or keep fighting over freshwater?
