America’s AI Boom Is Running Into An Unplanned Water Problem

By Ken Silverstein – Forbes

The fastest‑growing piece of America’s artificial intelligence infrastructure is colliding with one of its most finite local resources: water.

As utilities, state regulators, and local governments rush to accommodate a surge in data‑center construction driven by AI and cloud computing, water is emerging as a constraint that few permitting systems were designed to manage. The issue isn’t that data centers are unexpected. It’s that they have crossed a threshold of scale—yet are still being regulated as if they were ordinary real‑estate projects rather than nationally strategic infrastructure.