this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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how the fuck does a data center pump out a rare germ? Seriously. Isn't the water meant for cooling computers?!
That's one of the problems with having an open loop. Cold water comes in and it has a tiny quantity of an infectious agent, far too smaller quantity to be a problem for anyone.
Then Meta kindly warms that water up by running it through lots of hot computers, the bacterium multiply and do so at a rate proportionate to the temperature (if it goes too hot they die but I doubt even an AI data centre is going to get that hot), then the water gets dumped back into the mains water grid complete with all its lovely infectious agents.
You get bacteria growing in closed loop systems as well, that isn't an issue because it's closed loop you just have to clean it out every now and then.
I think the problem is that if the water got hot enough to kill the bacteria, it would mean the computers were running at temperatures hot enough that it would damage components on them (or at the very least reduce the lifespan of them).
I have a UV sterilizer on my aquarium to cut down pathogens and algae. They could install similar on their outflow, but that would cost more money.
The meta incubator
If they multiply, wouldn't that be bacteria? Bacterium is singular.
You're technically correct, but you may struggle to make friends like that ..
thank you for this great explanation.
Nice and warm water, good place for it to thrive. The cooling towers in Arizona sometimes has stickers warning about legionnaires disease.
Moreover, is it not the same water that enter the datacenter ?