Water is the binding constraint on AI infrastructure.
And it is the constraint Birchtech is already built to solve.
Artificial-intelligence computing is expanding faster than regional water systems can absorb — opening a widening gap between data center demand and available freshwater, and a measurable wave of community and regulatory resistance. This brief assesses the technical and commercial case for Birchtech Corp. to enter the data center water market, and how Dart Marketing proposes to support it.
Document
Vertical Assessment
Subject
AI & Hyperscale Data Centers
Prepared by
Dart Marketing
Date
June 2026
Executive Summary
1
AI data centers consumed an estimated one trillion liters of water in 2025; U.S. on-site consumption is projected to reach 150–280 billion liters by 2028, roughly 80% of it potable.124
2
Consumptive loss and degraded discharge have made water a leading driver of opposition, with temporary moratoria now enacted across at least 14 states.8
3
Birchtech's existing platform — RSSCT, SEA-IX™ ion exchange, PFAS field pilots, and rGAC — maps onto the data center water cycle without new technology development.
4
A single hyperscale or colocation specification can replicate across a fleet, establishing recurring revenue and a defensible AI-infrastructure position.
01
The water footprint of AI computing
High-density AI accelerators dissipate heat beyond the practical limits of air cooling. Cooling accounts for roughly 30–40% of total facility energy, and at scale the most cost-efficient approach remains evaporative cooling — which consumes freshwater through latent-heat rejection rather than returning it to source.36 Water consumption therefore rises with compute, and is benchmarked using Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE, liters per kilowatt-hour), with a U.S. fleet average near 1.17 L/kWh.1
~1T L
water consumed by AI data centers in 2025 — approximately 264 billion gallons2
66B L
direct U.S. data center consumption in 2023, up from 21.2 B L in 20143
~5M gal
per day for a single large hyperscale facility (≈1.8 B gal/yr)5
Figure 1 — Direct U.S. data center water consumption and 2028 projection. Sources: ELI (2025); LBNL (2024).34
Critically, the shift toward direct-to-chip and immersion liquid cooling for dense AI racks does not remove the water problem — it relocates it toward high-purity makeup and closed-loop fluid management, where ionic control and demineralization become essential. This is the precise discipline in which Birchtech's nuclear-grade ion exchange technology already operates.
02
Why communities are moving to halt development
Opposition has shifted from local sentiment to a material development risk, and water is central to it. The objection is not that these facilities occupy land — it is that they withdraw and degrade a shared, finite resource. As of early 2026, temporary pauses had been enacted across at least 14 states;8 in June 2026 the New York legislature passed the first statewide construction freeze, requiring an environmental impact statement on water resources before large facilities may proceed.9 In Texas, county commissioners pursuing moratoria to assess water sourcing have been sued by developers, while state officials have publicly called for pauses citing water strain.7
The grievance is twofold — and both halves describe contamination of the public supply:
Potable water, permanently removed
Roughly 80% of one major operator's cooling water in 2023 was potable.1 Evaporative cooling consumes — rather than returns — that water; training a single large model can directly evaporate on the order of 700,000 liters of clean freshwater.3 In stressed basins, this is drinking-water supply withdrawn and not replaced.
Discharge that fouls receiving water
Cooling-tower blowdown concentrates total dissolved solids to ~2,000 ppm and carries biocides, corrosion inhibitors (e.g., molybdate, zinc) and leached metals (Cu, Zn) at elevated temperature.10 Where treatment capacity is overtaxed — as in Northern Virginia's data center corridor — under-treated discharge can reach streams, threatening ecosystems and public health.11
The strategic implication: water treatment that enables reuse and certifies clean discharge is becoming a precondition for permit approval — the operator's license to build.
This reframes treatment from a discretionary operating cost into an enabler of project approval. A provider that can demonstrably cut freshwater withdrawal and certify discharge quality is selling not merely compliance, but the ability to break ground at all.
03
Technical fit: where Birchtech's platform applies
The cooling-water cycle presents four intervention points, each aligned to an existing Birchtech capability. Makeup water is treated and introduced; it concentrates through repeated evaporation (cycles of concentration); a blowdown stream is bled off to limit scaling and corrosion; and that stream is reused or discharged under permit.
Figure 2 — The data center cooling-water cycle, with Birchtech's four intervention points.
Birchtech capability
Application in the cooling-water cycle
RSSCT Design Centers
Rapid Small-Scale Column Testing
Compresses months of pilot work into days by predicting full-scale fixed-bed breakthrough on a facility's actual source water — producing the defensible, regulatory-grade design data operators and engineering firms require before committing capital.
SEA-IX™ Resins
Nuclear-grade ion exchange (SAC / SBA / mixed bed)
Demineralizes makeup water and removes hardness and silica to support higher cycles of concentration — directly reducing freshwater draw and blowdown volume. Mixed-bed configurations provide the high-purity polishing needed for blowdown reuse and liquid-cooling loops.
PFAS Field Pilot Program
Containerized on-site validation
Validates removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and heavy metals under real flow, pressure and source-water conditions — generating the evidence base for discharge permitting and sustainability reporting.
Birchtech Carbon Rejuvenation™
Thermally rejuvenated GAC (rGAC)
Utility-validated performance comparable to virgin carbon at lower lifecycle cost on adsorptive media — a recurring-service model that converts a single facility into a multi-year supply relationship.
Birchtech's media-agnostic, data-driven methodology suits a market in which source-water chemistry varies site-to-site and operators must optimize for both performance and compliance cost. No new core technology is required; the platform serving nuclear, coal-fired and municipal customers transfers directly.
04
Regulatory and compliance drivers
The compliance environment already accelerating Birchtech's drinking-water business extends naturally to large industrial water users such as data centers.
Enforceable federal PFAS limits
In April 2024 the U.S. EPA finalized the first enforceable national PFAS limits — 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS.12 PFAS enters cooling systems via aqueous fire-suppression foams and certain heat-transfer fluids.
NPDES discharge permitting
On-site systems generating blowdown or concentrate require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, with enforceable limits on metals, total dissolved solids and temperature — the contaminant classes Birchtech removes.10
$47B+ utility compliance burden
U.S. water utilities face over $47 billion in compliance costs tied to PFAS and PFOS regulation,14 establishing the cost basis and market precedent now extending to industrial users.
"Water-positive by 2030" pledges
Microsoft, Google, AWS and Meta have each committed to replenishing more water than they consume.3 Meeting these depends on the recycle-and-reuse treatment Birchtech enables.
05
Market sizing
$480M–1.4B
North American serviceable market for Birchtech's capabilities (Dart analysis)
~11.8%
projected CAGR in global data center water consumption through 2031
8×
Texas alone: 49 B gallons (2025) rising toward 399 B gallons (2030)7
Industry estimates place global data center water consumption near 2.97 trillion liters in 2026, exceeding 5.2 trillion by 2031. The opportunity is also a proven adjacency: Birchtech launched its SEA-IX™ line against an estimated $185–255 million addressable market across nuclear, coal-fired and municipal water, securing $1 million in purchase orders to date.14 Data centers represent a logical extension of that same demineralization and contaminant-removal expertise.
06
Strategic rationale for Birchtech
A single anchor relationship with one hyperscaler or large colocation operator could establish a new revenue line — and a clear AI-infrastructure narrative for the market.
Hyperscale and colocation operators standardize specifications across their fleets. Securing the water treatment specification at one qualified facility creates a defined path to replication across many sites. Layered with recurring media supply and Birchtech Carbon Rejuvenation™ services, an initial win becomes multi-year, recurring revenue rather than a one-time transaction.
For a public company, the position is both financial and strategic: Birchtech as the water treatment partner for AI infrastructure — credible because it extends, rather than departs from, the company's established expertise in high-purity and contaminant-removal applications. Revenue framing in this brief is directional and illustrative, not guidance or a forecast.
07
Dart's proposed contribution
Dart's mandate with Birchtech has spanned the corporate website, campaigns and content. We propose to contribute further upstream — supporting commercial development directly, not marketing output alone. The following three workstreams are designed to move this vertical from thesis to qualified pipeline.
Partner Contribution · Dart Marketing
A three-part go-to-market program
Each component is technically credible and built for an audience of operators, sustainability leadership and the engineering and EPC firms that influence specification.
01
A dedicated vertical landing page
A data center water treatment page on birchtech.com — articulating the technical fit, regulatory drivers and proof points — optimized for discovery by operators and engineering firms researching solutions.
02
A presentation deck for direct engagement
A technically rigorous deck for Birchtech's team to present to data center operators and their engineering partners, mapping the platform against the cooling-water cycle and compliance requirements above.
03
Direct targeting of data center operators
A prioritized target account list — hyperscalers and colocation operators ranked by water-stress exposure and permitting timelines — with mapped buying committees and a managed outbound program to open qualified conversations directly with these accounts.
08
Recommended next steps
Alignment review
A working session to confirm appetite for the vertical and prioritize the capabilities Birchtech wishes to lead with.
Starter package
Dart develops the prioritized target account list, a first-draft presentation deck and a landing page outline for review.
Focused pilot
A contained outbound effort against a defined set of priority accounts, with a joint go/no-go assessment before broader scaling.
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Partner Contribution · Dart Marketing