Net 0++: AI Thirst in a Water-Scarce World w/ Julie McCarthy

Last year, Elon Musk’s xAI built a data centre in Memphis in 19 days — and the local government only found out about it on the 20th day. How?

Julie McCarthy and her team at NatureFinance have just released a report about the nature-related impacts of data center development globally. There are some pretty dire statistics in there: 55% of data centers are developed in areas that are already at risk of drought. So why do they get built there?

Julie also shares the longer arc of her career, which began in extractive industry transparency, and included time leading the Open Government Partnership, and the Economic Justice Program at Open Society Foundations. She brings all of that experience together for an insightful conversation about what iss happening with tech infrastructure expansion and what we should do about it.

Further reading & resources:

• Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics
• NatureFinance website
• Navigating AI’s Thirst in a Water-Scarce World — by NatureFinance
• Elon Musk building an xAI data centre in 19 days — report by Time Magazine
• OSF’s Economic Justice Programme
• The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato

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Julie is NatureFinance’s CEO. She was founding co-director of the Open Society Foundations’ (OSF) Economic Justice Program, a $100 million per annum global grantmaking and impact investment program focused on issues of fiscal justice, workers’ rights, and corporate power. Previous roles include serving as the founding director of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), and as a Franklin Fellow and peacebuilding adviser at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, focused on Liberia. Prior to this, McCarthy co-founded the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), serving as its deputy director until 2009. She is a Brookings non-resident fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, and an Aspen Civil Society Fellow. Julie lives with her three children in Warwick, NY.