24 August 2026

Treated sewage proposed as cooling solution for AI data centers

• A marketing campaign by Liquid Death, a beverage company, prompted discussion about using treated wastewater to cool data centers instead of fresh water.
• Loudoun County, Virginia currently uses 200 million gallons daily of recycled sewage for cooling, demonstrating the technology works at scale.
• Current recycled sewage supply covers only 43 percent of regional cooling demand, meaning infrastructure would need major expansion to meet data center needs.

How it was covered

MindstreamAdam Biddlecombe

A viral marketing campaign from Liquid Death sparked genuine discussion about using treated wastewater to cool data centers. While treatment technology exists and Loudoun County uses 200 million gallons daily of recycled sewage for cooling, this addresses only 43% of regional needs, indicating infrastructure scaling remains the real challenge.