Synergistic Cooling and Sovereignty: A Socio-Technical Analysis of Deep Ocean Water for AI Data Centers and Desalination in Water-Stressed Developing Regions

Abstract

Concerns are raised among water-poor developing nations about the growing demand for water by large data centers when evaporative cooling can compete against domestic, agricultural, and ecological water needs. Pumping Deep Ocean Water from thermohaline-stratified layers with average year-round temperatures just above 0 degrees has no need to draw down freshwater resources and is therefore a hydrologically neutral cooling solution. DOW extraction colocated with RO desalination can reduce capital costs for high-value colocated missions and RO energy intensity by using excess waste cold energy extracted from the data center cooling.   Risks from discharge can be reduced through accurate thermal and saline plume modeling, multiport diffusers, and adaptive sensor-based discharge management that can simultaneously enable near-coastal marine co-benefits. Resource Offtake Agreements and community governance structures codifying equal allocations as non-negotiable hard law, and a hierarchical multi-agent reinforcement learning optimization layer for conflicting resource demands, are design principles through which community water welfare can be catalyzed by AI-enabled infrastructure for water sovereignty in coastal developing metropolitan areas.