Can urine actually cool AI data centers?
Original: OK, can we actually cool data centers with our pee?
Why This Matters
Data center water consumption is a growing concern as AI workloads scale, making alternative water sourcing critical for sustainable infrastructure.
Liquid Death's marketing campaign starring Jason Kelce humorously proposed using urine to cool AI data centers. Experts confirm that while raw urine is impractical, treated wastewater — which includes human urine — is already being used as an alternative cooling water source at data centers.
Beverage brand Liquid Death launched a comedic marketing campaign featuring former Philadelphia Eagles star Jason Kelce, suggesting that human urine could be used to cool AI data centers. The campaign highlights a real environmental concern: AI data centers consume massive quantities of water to prevent servers from overheating.
While the commercial is satirical, experts say it touches on a genuine industry practice. Michael Obradovitch, VP of Data Center Global Accounts at Ecolab, told TechCrunch: 'The Liquid Death commercial is funny and tongue-in-cheek, but in reality, there is a fair amount of alternative water sources already being used to a similar extent to cool these data centers.'
Bruno Pigott, executive director of the WateReuse Association and former EPA acting assistant administrator for water, clarified that raw urine would be completely unsuitable for direct cooling use. 'Pee contains salts, urea, bacteria, and organic matter that can leave mineral deposits,' he explained. However, treated wastewater — which includes processed human urine — is already being deployed as a legitimate alternative to potable water in data center cooling systems. Pigott added: 'You wouldn't just use pee, but you can clean it and make it into useful water, and that's what we advocate.' While urine-to-drinkable-water technology exists (used by astronauts in space), it is not scalable for industrial data center use.