Is Data Center Water Use a Threat to Your Town, or the Money Its Water System Has Been Waiting For?



Data center water use has become one of the loudest arguments about AI, from the one-bottle-per-prompt claim to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arguing both sides on The Daily Show. So I looked into where that water goes, what the tech giants' promises are worth, and how smart towns make the AI boom pay for better water systems.



With insights from Ralph Exton, Executive Director of the Water Environment Federation (WEF), which founded the Water-AI Nexus Center of Excellence with Amazon and other partners.



🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️

🏘️ In The Dalles, Oregon, Google used a third of the city's water in 2024, and letting it grow meant new wells, storage and pumping that Google would build and then hand over to the city

🔍 Hinkley, Flint and Erin Brockovich's data center initiative show why neighbors want a baseline before construction, results they can check, and someone responsible for fixing problems

🚰 "Water positive" put to the test: Amazon's $2.2 million for leak detection in Orange County, and why a saving only counts if it reaches the same water system a data center draws from

❄️ Air cooling, treated wastewater or warmer-water designs: how to cut data center water use when thermodynamics offers no free lunch

🤖 AI inside water utilities: why operators must stay the human in the loop, after the FBI and EPA warned of attacks on water control equipment in at least seven states

💵 From Douglas County, Georgia, to Ralph's call to cut the ribbon at the new pump station rather than the data center: how the AI boom can finally fund the water projects communities need



🥜 IN A NUTSHELL 🥜

How much water does AI actually use? It depends on what the number counts (one response, training a model, or a whole building) and on whether that water goes back to its source or evaporates.

When does data center water use become a local problem? When one customer needs a big share of a town's supply, because someone then has to find more water, build the equipment and keep the taps running on the hottest day.

Can a data center really give water back? Yes, if the savings reach the same water system it draws from, anytime, and preserve more water than its infrastructure withdraws.

Who should control AI inside a water utility? The utility, with trained operators who stay the human in the loop for any change to pumps, valves or chemical feeds.

Who pays if the promised demand never arrives? That's the hard part of the deal, which is why utilities consider charges for unused capacity, and why water has to be on the table in the first six months of a data center project.



#️⃣ Mentioned Links #️⃣

📌 AI 101 for Water Professionals, the free 90-minute course by Watura and WEF: https://www.watura.us/courses/ai-101-for-water-professionals

📌 My previous video on the water-and-energy tradeoff of data center cooling: https://youtu.be/1o-cdb8xzZ0

📌 Water-AI Nexus, Principles for Sustainable Water Use by Data Centers: https://water-ai-nexus.org/insight-report/

📌 Erin Brockovich's data center initiative: https://www.brockovichdatacenter.com/


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How Smart Towns Make Data Centers Pay (w. Ralph Exton - WEF & Water AI Nexus Center of Excellence)

Thermal desalination lost the water industry to reverse osmosis on one number: boiling seawater takes about ten times more energy than pushing it through a membrane. So why is one of the 20 teams left in the XPRIZE Water Scarcity competition still betting on heat?



Desolenator is a Dutch water tech company that desalinates with heat instead of pressure, running on solar energy and industrial waste heat rather than grid electricity. Its hybrid panel harvests electricity and thermal energy from the same sunlight, recovers the latent heat of its own steam, and can run to zero liquid discharge, leaving salt instead of brine. Four patents, and a scale-up from 25 to 100, then 1,000 cubic metres a day.



William Janssen built the first proof of principle in his living room and kept the distilled water in his freezer as proof. He won 100,000 euros at Climate Launchpad, was picked up by the Dubai Future Accelerator and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, and delivered plants in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Desolenator is chaired by Paddy Padmanathan, who led ACWA Power for 18 years and made it the world's largest desalination company.



🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️

🌡️ Why thermal desalination's ten-times energy penalty disappears when the heat is "chaleur fatale", the waste heat industry pays to throw away

🔌 How a phone call about data centre cooling became patent number four: one heat pump worked from BOTH sides, lifting 50°C exhaust to the 70°C a distiller needs

🌱 Why farmers around Al Ain are salting the aquifer they irrigate from, and how zero liquid discharge breaks that loop

📉 Paddy Padmanathan on the cost curve he signed himself: $2.50 per cubic metre in 2005, $0.46 on his last ACWA Power contract in 2023, and why it still isn't solved

🏆 What William answers when asked point blank whether Desolenator wins the XPRIZE: two words no founder is supposed to say



🥜 IN A NUTSHELL 🥜

What is thermal desalination, and how does it differ from reverse osmosis?

Thermal desalination makes fresh water by evaporating seawater and condensing the steam, the way rain works, while reverse osmosis pushes seawater through a fine membrane under pressure. Reverse osmosis uses roughly ten times less energy and won the municipal market, but it needs electricity, while thermal desalination runs on the low-grade heat industry already wastes.



Can solar energy power desalination?

Yes. Desolenator's panels harvest electricity and heat from the same sunlight and buffer both, which is how its Dubai plant hit the benchmark set by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority: 10 cubic metres a day, 20 hours a day, year-round.



What is zero liquid discharge, and why does it matter for water scarcity?

Zero liquid discharge recovers all the water from a stream and leaves solid salt instead of brine. It matters where brine has nowhere to go: around Al Ain, farmers desalinate saline groundwater and flush the concentrate back into the aquifer, making it saltier each year.



Is thermal desalination a good water investment in 2026?

It depends on scale and free heat. Desolenator draws its own fence at 100 million litres a day, above which membranes win. Its CapEx runs higher than conventional quotes and its OpEx dramatically lower, so the economics favour industrial sites with waste heat or land for solar, and buyers needing zero liquid discharge.



#️⃣ Mentioned Links #️⃣

Desolenator - desolenator.com [http://desolenator.com]

Why Elon Musk's Desalination Vision is Failing - watch on YouTube [https://youtu.be/RLnCo3MMcSw]


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So, Thermal Desalination is the Future Now? (w. Willian Janssen - Desolenator)

FREE TOOL ➡️ Get your water tech pitch reviewed: https://app.leviathandata.io/pitch-deck-analyzer

More #water insights? Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/



See how the Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival brings together creative minds in Newcastle for collaborative problem solving.

Watch the energy of this unique event.



This episode takes you inside the Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival to show how large groups tackle industry challenges through structured collaboration.

You will see firsthand how participants move from concept to practical solutions using specific frameworks like sprint tents and the Crystal Ball method.

Whether you are interested in corporate innovation or local Newcastle events, this footage highlights the collaborative process in action.

It is designed for professionals and curious viewers who want to observe how collaborative problem-solving works in a real-world setting, moving beyond traditional meeting rooms to open, creative environments.

If you enjoyed seeing how an Innovation Festival operates, subscribe for weekly industry event recaps, and let us know in the comments if you prefer structured workshops or free-form brainstorming sessions.



#️⃣ All the Links Mentioned in this Video #️⃣

Design Thinking with Lea im Obersteg: https://dww.show/who/lea-im-obersteg/



🎙️ Subscribe and Listen to the Don't Waste Water Podcast HERE 🎙️

Podcast Channel: @dwwpodcast

Main Channel: @AntoineWalterDWW

Smartlink: https://smartlink.ausha.co/dont-waste-water

Website: https://dww.show/podcast/



🙋 QUESTION: What would you like me to cover next?



⏰ TIME CODES ⏰

00:00 The Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival

03:55 Inside Tent 15

04:32 Design Sprint Crash Course

06:13 South Bend Smart Sewer Origin

09:18 UK Spill Crisis Context

11:25 Power of Ten Ambition

13:30 Reality Check and Tease

14:27 Beetroot Break

15:21 Adoption Workshop Takeaways

20:39 Why Tents Work

21:23 NUAR Billion Dollar Story

24:55 Festival Scale and Impact

28:50 Wrap Up and Reflections

30:31 Free Tool



About this Podcast:

Welcome to the (don't) Waste Water podcast, the leading podcast for water industry professionals, investors, and entrepreneurs seeking deep insights into water tech innovation, investment trends, and strategic moves in the sector. Host Antoine Walter blends his technical expertise with sharp business acumen to deliver weekly episodes featuring candid conversations with C-suite executives, detailed analysis of major water industry developments, and practical insights for water tech startups and seasoned players alike.


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3 Days at the Glastonbury of Water (Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival 2026)

How did HG Ventures quietly become one of the most active water tech investors on the planet, without even calling itself a water VC?



HG Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of The Heritage Group, a 100-year-old, family-owned Indianapolis conglomerate active in asphalt, quarries, environmental services and specialty chemicals. With $350M in assets, the fund deploys around $50M a year across 41 portfolio companies and 7 sectors, and ranks 5th globally in water tech by deal count despite water being only 18% of its thesis.



Ginger Rothrock holds a PhD in chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill, co-founded the NASDAQ-listed pharmaceutical company Liquidia, was promoted to Managing Director of HG Ventures in December 2025, and is a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Star and Kauffman Fellow with deep expertise in industrial water, industrial wastewater treatment, and corporate venture capital in cleantech.



🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️

🏗️ How a 100-year-old asphalt-and-quarries empire ended up running one of the most active water tech portfolios on the planet

🧪 Why a PhD chemist with 75 R&D scientists down the hallway puts technology last, and storytelling first, when she evaluates water tech founders

💧 How HG Ventures built its industrial wastewater treatment, industrial water reuse and zero liquid discharge thesis from the inside out

⚡ Why a 4-person investment team and a 2-month decision cycle out-deal-flow every other corporate venture capital fund in the water industry

🎯 Why Ginger Rothrock calls the water industry "inevitable", and how HG Ventures is positioning for the next decade of water tech exits



🥜 IN A NUTSHELL 🥜

Who are the biggest water tech investors and venture capital firms in 2026?

The most active water tech investors by deal count are Burnt Island Ventures, Echo River Capital, PureTerra Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, and HG Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of The Heritage Group, ranked 5th globally despite water being only 18% of its thesis.



What is corporate venture capital (CVC) and how does it differ from traditional venture capital?

Corporate venture capital is venture investing from inside a corporation rather than from an independent fund, which means a CVC like HG Ventures can hold portfolio companies for a decade or more without the LP pressure that kills the average CVC at year four.



How do you pitch a venture capital firm to fund a water tech startup?

Most water tech VCs filter pitches on whether the fund can actually help you commercially, whether you understand the market problem (especially who your real competition is), and whether you can tell a clear story under five minutes, and most water tech founders lose by leading with the technology.



Is the water industry a good long-term investment in 2026?

Yes, water tech venture capital deal counts have quadrupled since 2018, but capital flows mostly through specialist venture capital, corporate venture capital and private equity rather than the public market, because most water stocks underperformed in the 2020s.



What is industrial water reuse, and what is zero liquid discharge?

Industrial water reuse is treating a facility's wastewater on-site and recycling it back into the process, while zero liquid discharge is the extreme version where 100% of the water is recovered, and both are accelerating because of rising freshwater costs, tightening discharge regulations and corporate ESG targets.



#️⃣ Mentioned Links #️⃣

HG Ventures — hgventures.com [http://hgventures.com]


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The Water VC You Can't Name (How HG Ventures Deployed $48,523,663 in Water Tech)

The First Water Sector Unicorn Wants to IPO. But Wall Street kinda forgot how to buy water...



Early-stage water tech funding quadrupled in seven years. Private equity's share of water M&A doubled in a decade, with a record 165 PE-led acquisitions in a single year. The bench of PE-owned water platforms grew from 42 companies in 2015 to nearly 600 in 2025. And the sector just minted its first twice-unicorn - Gradiant - with a Series E at a $2 billion valuation on Day 1 of the Global Water Summit 2026! So, will Gradiant IPO?



Four all-time highs at once... but the fifth dimension - the public market - went the other way. IPOs in the 2020s are a pale echo of the 2010. So I flew to Madrid to ask the people building the machine (the VCs, the PE platforms, the strategics, the bankers, the entrepreneurs) a single question: is this closed-loop water-capital machine a feature of a mature sector, or a $300 billion pressure cooker about to crack?



🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️

💵 108 funding rounds in early-stage water tech in 2025 alone vs. 33 in 2018: 3.3× the count and roughly 5× the dollars

🏗️ 42 → ~600 PE-owned water platforms in a decade, with 165 PE acquisitions in 2025 (the most ever)... but 80 of them sub-$10M targets: high velocity, low ticket

🦄 Gradiant's Series E at $2B valuation announced Day 1 of GWS 2026. What Anurag Bajpayee told me: "We have to be ready to go public because we want to control our destiny"

💰 Four specialist water VC funds raising at the exact same time: a feature or a weakness?

🏢 Summa Equity (€10B+ Nordic thematic PE) entering water for the first time, targeting the missing middle



🥜 IN A NUTSHELL 🥜

Is water tech actually a good investment in 2026? Water-tech venture capital just hit an all-time high. Early-stage funding rounds quadrupled in seven years (from 33 in 2018 to 108 in 2025) and total water VC inflow exceeded $1 billion in 2024. Private equity also set a record with 165 water-company acquisitions in 2025, roughly double its 2015 share of the market. The catch: with almost zero water IPOs in a decade, investor returns flow mostly through PE-to-PE handoffs and strategic acquisitions, not the public market.



What is Gradiant and why does its $2 billion Series E matter? Gradiant is a Boston-area water-treatment company specializing in industrial-water reuse, brine management, and ultrapure water for semiconductor and AI data-center fabs. They just announced a Series E at a $2 billion valuation, making it water tech's first twice-unicorn. CEO Anurag Bajpayee announced on camera that the company is preparing to go public, which would be the first venture-stage water IPO in over a decade.



Why are there no water IPOs if the sector is growing so fast? The public-market track record is brutal. Of Global Water Intelligence's 2022 list of 30 listed water stocks, 21 lost more than two-thirds of their value by 2026. The listed water universe is small (about 139 stocks worth roughly $122 billion in total) and too illiquid to absorb new venture-stage water IPOs. Instead, the sector built its own private-market exit machine.



#️⃣ Mentioned Links #️⃣

WTF Is Happening with Water Stocks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flen_vwx0kQ

5 Water Tech Investment Facts (that will blow your mind): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCfcigu_oPQ

Global Water Intelligence — globalwaterintel.com [http://globalwaterintel.com] (check out their new WIN and Euro WIN AI platforms!)


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600 Private Water Bets - Zero Public Exits. Is This Sector About to Crack? (and will Gradiant IPO?)

On April 30, 2026, CRH plc (NYSE: CRH) announced a $700 million agreement to acquire Axius Water from KKR and XPV Water Partners - instantly making the Irish-American building materials giant one of the largest water infrastructure players in North America. If CRH acquires Axius, what's next?



Most investors missed it, so I thought I'd decode it!

Here are the 10 things you need to see.



So you got it, CRH acquires Axius. Here's the deal in 30 seconds:

• Buyer: CRH plc - a $77B market cap building materials company most water investors don't track

• Target: Axius Water - a wastewater treatment platform built by KKR and XPV Water Partners through a multi-year roll-up

• Price: $700M (reported)

• Sellers: KKR (Global Impact Fund) and XPV Water Partners

• Strategic logic: bolts wastewater treatment onto CRH's existing water infrastructure portfolio (Hydro International, Oldcastle Infrastructure)



What's actually new here - and why it matters for water investors:

00:00 - On your Bingo Card?

02:30 #1: The Cast

07:35 #2: The Substance

11:40 #3: The Number

16:23 #4: The Timing

20:54 #5: The Macro Reality

24:40 #6: The Credibility

28:26 #7: Inside the Platform

32:28 #8: The Synergy Story

35:17 #9: The Risks

39:58 #10: The Sector Signal



📰 Sources & further reading:

• CRH Q1 2026 earnings call transcript: https://www.crh.com/investors/results-presentations/

• KKR Global Impact Fund: https://www.kkr.com/approach/sustainability/sustainable-investing/trends

• XPV Water Partners portfolio: https://xpvwaterpartners.com/companies

• Axius Water: https://www.axiuswater.com/

• My newsletter on Water Infrastructure: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-water-bill-4x-what-everyone-thinks-antoine-walter-3rqnc/



🎙️ If we don't know each other, Hi, I'm Antoine Walter! I help newcomer investors decode the water tech sector. Each week, I break down a water deal (like here, when CRH acquires Axius), technology, or company through an investor-forward lens. No acronyms, no jargon (hopefully) just the signals that matter.



🔔 Subscribe for weekly water investment briefs: youtube.com/channel/UCsMC1BYAun2JtMT177jTGOw/

🎧 Podcast version: https://feed.ausha.co/br23DCZ1GnG3

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1



⚠️ Disclaimer: This video is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing here constitutes investment advice. Always do your own research.



#CRH #AxiusWater #KKR #XPVWaterPartners #WaterInvesting #WaterMA #WaterStocks #WaterInfrastructure #WastewaterTreatment #WaterTech #PrivateEquity #ImpactInvesting #ESG #WaterSector


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Guess Who Just Spent $700M on Water? (10 Things Investors Missed) - CRH acquires Axius Water from KKR and XPV Water Partners

Everyone says AI is drinking the planet dry, right? Well, the numbers say your morning coffee uses 29,600× more water than a ChatGPT prompt!



In this episode, I sit down with Alex Passini to pressure-test the dominant narrative around AI's water footprint - and what we found completely flips the story the media is telling.



Here's what most "AI water crisis" headlines miss:

→ A single ChatGPT prompt uses roughly 16 milliliters of water. One cup of coffee uses ~140 liters when you count the beans. That's a 29,600× gap.

→ Of the water a hyperscale data center consumes, ~75% isn't used by AI at all — it's used upstream for the energy that powers it. Blame the grid, not the GPU.

→ One banana = ~6,250 ChatGPT prompts. One almond = ~12 prompts. The water-per-prompt math is rounding-error territory next to your lunch.

→ Florida already reuses 800 million gallons/day of treated wastewater. Data centers aren't the threat - they're an accelerant for the water reuse capex the sector has been waiting twenty years for.



If you're an investor trying to figure out whether AI's water story is a real thesis or a media artifact, this episode gives you the framework (and the numbers) to decide.



🧠 What you'll learn:

- Why "data center water consumption" and "AI water consumption" are not the same thing

- The actual per-prompt footprint of generative AI (modeled, not estimated)

- How water reuse technology turns the alarmist narrative into an investment opportunity

- Where the real bottleneck sits - and which sub-sectors stand to benefit



🎙️ Guest: Alex Passini (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexpassini/)

Alex is Vice President of Business Development at CSA Group

CSA Group is hiring: https://csagroup.com/careers/

(I promised Alex in the podcast to put this in the show notes!)



📰 The newsletter behind the show: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/don-t-waste-water-6884833968848474112/

🎧 Podcast feed: https://feed.ausha.co/br23DCZ1GnG3

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

🔔 Subscribe if you want the unfiltered, numerate take on water sector investing - no jargon, no acronym soup, just the asymmetric bets worth pricing.


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Your Cup of Coffee Uses 29,600x More Water Than a ChatGPT Prompt (w. Alex Passini) [2/2]

Every analyst, every think tank, every consulting deck has an opinion on AI's water footprint (and overall on AI and Water)



But nobody bothered to ask the people actually watching the videos, posting the comments, and shaping the narrative. You'd need to be mad to do that, right?



So I read 2,540 of them. 😅



Across 9 of the most-watched YouTube videos on AI water consumption, and overall on AI and Water.

Here's what I found:

1️⃣ The public is right about geography. Boardman, Oregon, shows up at 80 comments per minute for a reason.

2️⃣ The public is right about the executives. The -0.20 sentiment around Sam Altman's "one-fifteenth of a teaspoon" line is actually a signal.

3️⃣ The public is wrong about closed-loop cooling. The most-liked comment on the entire dataset? Hank Green publicly correcting himself. 13,000 likes for "I was wrong."

4️⃣ And the public is missing the bigger story almost entirely — the one that's about to constrain AI before water ever does.



This is the third and final chapter of a trilogy on AI, water, and the trillion-dollar infrastructure thesis hiding behind the headlines - basically on AI and Water:

📍 Part 1 - Data Center Consumption DOESN'T Matter... But Discharge Does! → [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o-cdb8xzZ0

📍 Part 2 - The 2027 Deadline That's About to Reprice Water Companies → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PKHUo6q5gw

📍 Part 3 - You're watching it 😅



⏱️ Chapters

00:00 — Nobody asked. So I did.

01:44 — The dataset: 2,540 comments, 9 videos, 1 spreadsheet

03:58 — What the public got wrong (closed-loop cooling and the misleading-true problem)

07:07 — The most-liked comment on AI water — and why it matters

10:53 — What everyone is missing



🔬 Methodology 2,540 individual comments analyzed 9 source videos (the most-viewed English-language content on AI water consumption as of) Sentiment scoring + theme clustering done manually, then cross-checked



🏷️ Topics covered AI water consumption · AI water usage · data center cooling · AI environmental impact · closed-loop cooling · AI energy consumption · water sector investing · sustainability · generative AI infrastructure · AI data center water · Sam Altman water · Boardman Oregon data centers


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Nobody Asked What the Public Actually Thinks About AI and Water. So I Did. [1/2]

Who Buys the First Data Center Water Company? And When Does the Repricing Start?



Data center water treatment is a $1.1 billion market growing nearly 15% per year, with 60% of spending recurring - generating an "infinite money glitch" for the righty designed water tech companies. So, strategic buyers, private equity sponsors, and VC-backed platforms are racing to consolidate water tech expertise. Meanwhile, hyperscalers spending $50 billion a year on infrastructure have made zero water acquisitions... for how long?



🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️

💵 A $660M recurring-revenue pocket nobody priced as SaaS - 60% of data center water spend is OPEX, not capex (Sustainability at its best)

🏗️ AEA Investors' CRB Water playbook: a $13.2M Missouri distributor turned national data center water platform in 24 months through five add-on acquisitions

📈 Evoqua's 17x EBITDA exit to Xylem in 2023 as the template - and AEA ran that play too

🌐 Microsoft's water use efficiency (WUE, liters per kWh of compute) sits at 0.2, roughly 5x better than Google's 0.96 and 6.5x better than Apple's 1.3

🏢 Amazon's Kiva Systems DNA applied to water: write the blueprint internally, then acquire the builder when the capability becomes competitively load-bearing

⏱️ A 2027 zero-water pledge deadline creating a hard two-year window for Microsoft 🎯 The short list of acquisition targets: Gradiant, CRB Water, Infinite Cooling, Uravu Labs



🥜 IN A NUTSHELL 🥜

Why is data center water treatment the fastest-growing industrial water vertical? At $1.1B in 2024 and above 13% annual growth (roughly double any other industrial water segment) demand tracks the $50B/year hyperscaler capex directly.

Who's actually buying so far? Ecolab (~$7B combined on CoolIT Systems and Ovivo's electronics division), Xylem (Vacom Systems at $42M), Kemira (Water Engineering Inc. at $150M, 2.5x revenue), EQT Infrastructure (Seven Seas Water at roughly $1B), and AEA Investors (Chemtron RiverBend plus five add-ons, now CRB Water).

What makes the hyperscalers different? They spend $50B/year on data centers and run extensive water partnerships and VC positions, but have not acquired a single water company. Yet?

Why does this matter for investors? When the first hyperscaler moves, water companies with data center exposure reprice from the 7.5x EBITDA sector median to 15-20x+ strategic-platform multiples.

Who are the likely targets? Gradiant ($330M raised, 23 products, nine acquisitions, Counter-Flow RO at 99% recovery), CRB Water (PE exit setup), Aquatech or Saltworks Technologies (in the "right brain" approach), Infinite Cooling, Uravu Labs or AirJoule Technologies in the "left brain" one.



#️⃣ Mentioned Links #️⃣

- The PE Water Platforms Nobody's Talking About Yet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1o78cgd5Hs

- AEA Investors - aeainvestors.com [http://aeainvestors.com]

- CRB Water - https://www.crbwater.com/

- My conversation with Prakash Govindan (Gradiant) - https://youtu.be/Hpk_gPjm_1s?si=d_I3gYuYLYudBmQK


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The 2027 Deadline That's About to Reprice Water Companies (Data Center Water)

What Is the Real Water Problem Behind AI Data Centers - and Where Is the $1.3 Billion Opportunity?



AI Water seems to concern everybody, while data center water treatment is the fastest-growing industrial water vertical in the world - $1.35 billion in 2025, growing at 13.3% per year. But the media is chasing the wrong story. The real problem isn’t consumption volume — it’s the concentrated industrial wastewater that cooling towers produce. This episode maps the opportunity most investors are missing. A



🌶️ KEY SPICES 🌶️

💧 American lawns consume 49 times more water than every AI data center in the US combined - so why is the media only alarmed about servers?

🏭 Cooling towers evaporate pure water and discharge “blowdown” - industrial wastewater concentrated at 3-5x intake levels that almost nobody covers

💰 Ecolab acquired CoolIT Systems for $4.75 billion at 25x revenue, assembling a $10.5 billion integrated stack from resin to chip to managed service

📉 Zero hyperscalers (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta) have acquired a single water treatment company despite spending $50B/year on data center construction

📊 The EU has capped data center water usage at 0.4 L/kWh in water-stressed areas — the installed base runs at 2.3-3.8, creating a 6-10x compliance gap



🥜 IN A NUTSHELL 🥜

Why do American lawns matter in a video about AI water? Turfgrass consumes roughly 12 billion cubic meters per year, 49 times more than all US data centers combined — context that reframes the media’s breathless AI-water coverage.

What is “blowdown” and why should investors care? Evaporative cooling towers discharge concentrated wastewater at 3-5x intake levels containing salts, silica, and treatment chemicals — this industrial waste stream scales linearly with every hyperscale facility under construction, creating a $1.35 billion treatment market growing at 13.3% per year.

Why did Ecolab pay $4.75 billion for CoolIT at 25x revenue? Liquid cooling eliminates evaporation but creates a new treatment market for closed-loop fluid chemistry, and Ecolab has spent $10.5 billion since 2021 assembling the only complete stack from ion exchange resin to GPU cold plate to managed service contract for AI Water

Why haven’t hyperscalers acquired a water company? Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta have vertically integrated into chips, power, and fiber — but zero water acquisitions appear in the global M&A record, even as institutional capital poured $13.5 billion into water deals in 2025 alone.



#️⃣ Mentioned Links #️⃣

📌 Arthur D. Little: “AI’s Hidden Dependencies” report: https://www.adlittle.com/sites/default/files/2026-01/BLUE_SHIFT_AI_hidden_dependencies.pdf

📌 GWI's data center rubric: https://www.globalwaterintel.com/industries/data-centres

📌 Ecolab CoolIT acquisition announcement: https://tinyurl.com/fa34yeht

📌 The Ecolab/Ovivo deal, decoded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1o78cgd5Hs

📌 My deep dive on H2O Innovation (and what we learn about platform building): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOvJK8BnOJo


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Data Center Consumption DOESN'T Matter... But Discharge Does! (AI Water Footprint)

Antoine Walter (@dontwastewater) · Zencastr

Antoine Walter (@dontwastewater)

❓ Ever wondered how the #WaterIndustry was reacting to our World's Water Challenges? Water Scarcity? #SDG6? Emerging contaminants? Climate Change? Circular Economy? Digitization and Smart Water? 💪 Get the Water Market pulse, for free. In one hour per week, while you do the dishes! 📈 Get inspired by incredible guests, Water Entrepreneurs, Thought Leaders, Book Authors, Scientists, and Investors ➡️ Leverage their insights, advice & experience and ensure to stay on top of best practices 🗓️ Tune in every Wednesday, (don't miss out! 😅) 🌐 Find all the detailed episode notes, interviews, infographics, and more on http://dww.show

(don't) Waste Water!

Antoine Walter's Show

Apprenez les méthodes qui marchent et associez l'ingénieur et le commercial en vous pour devenir des commerciaux ingénieux.