Massive Southland data centre's water consent concerns engineer
A proposed hyperscale data centre in Southland, New Zealand, is facing scrutiny over its massive water consumption requirements. Experts argue that current resource management schemes are ill-equipped to handle the environmental impact of such large-scale AI infrastructure.
Why it matters
As AI demand grows, the physical resource footprint of data centers—specifically water for cooling—is becoming a critical environmental and policy challenge.
A leading expert on consents for water is warning the country's resource management scheme is not fit to manage the long term impact of hyperscale data centres.
Singapore-based company Datagrid was given 10 resource consents this year for an AI factory in Southland, that included the ability to draw more than 600,000 litres of groundwater every day and to discharge some 5000 litres of treated wastewater.
Expected to open in 2028, the 78,000 square metre AI factory in Makarewa was tracking to become the second single biggest user of electricity behind the aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point, near Bluff.
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