AI trends are fun. The water crisis isn’t.Imagine a group of looters attacking your neighbourhood, and instead of stopping them, you encourage them and appreciate the way they are distracting you while they loot. Yeah, that’s exactly how absurd it is when we hop on meaningless trends for a few moments of joy and completely forget how artificial intelligence platforms and their data centres are consuming resources we desperately need.Generating one image to see how you would have looked in the 1980s, or turning yourself into a Ghibli-style character, may seem harmless. But when millions of people do the same thing, the numbers start to matter.If numbers are what it takes to make the danger feel real, here they are.A 2026 report by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health estimates that generating a standard-resolution AI image uses about 2.9 watt-hours of electricity, with an associated water footprint of roughly 29 millilitres, or about two tablespoons. The report estimates that producing 300 million AI images a day could result in an annual water footprint of more than 3 billion litres.Bengaluru is already a major data-centre hub, with 31 of Karnataka’s 32 operational data centres located in the city. Ten more are planned, according to IT minister Priyank Kharge. Reportedly, a one-megawatt data centre requires 68,500 litres of water a day. Hydrologist Shashank Palur of WELL Labs estimates that Bengaluru’s existing data centres consume around 20 million litres of water a day, with a significant share coming from groundwater.If that doesn’t scare us, I don’t know what will.Bengaluru is experiencing its hottest September in 75 years alongside a persistent water crisis. Both are consequences of a warming planet. Now add the growing resource demands of data centres to the equation.In school, we were warned that technology-driven global warming would have consequences for the next generation. Years passed, and most of us failed to realise that the once-distant future is now at our doorstep. The most shocking part is that we are already becoming desensitised to it. It barely bothers us anymore that communities near data centres in the United States have reported water shortages and problems with water quality.We are not angry enough.Wasn’t AI introduced to make our lives simpler? I wonder what happened to that intent. Making ourselves look like we belong in the 1980s could have been a fashion trend a few years ago. Asking an artist to draw you in a Ghibli-style aesthetic, or dressing up and booking a photographer to make you look like a Bollywood superstar, were all things people could do without AI. I don’t think we need AI to replace artists doing the jobs they love and are meant to do.Protecting the planet, our only home, is not a choice. It is the only sane thing to do. So when we hop on every new AI trend, generate another image for a few seconds of amusement, and encourage platforms to consume even more energy and water, we have to ask ourselves: Is that really worth it?Your AI selfie may last forever on the internet. The water it consumed may not.
