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Increasing Drought Conditions Threaten Utah High-Tech Data Center Cooling Systems, Ella Devey

Research on Capitol Hill

Federal national security related data centers are increasingly threatened as drought conditions increase in Utah and Idaho. The NSA and FBI data centers in these locations process digital information that informs local and national decision makers of critical national security occurrences. Data centers use water-based cooling systems to prevent hardware failure from overheating, that, while energy efficient, consume large quantities of water. Data centers cannot operate without robust cooling mechanisms. Increasing drought conditions in Utah and Idaho may at a future point become severe enough that water restrictions to the communities that house data centers are possible. The water levels …