Inside the AquaHacking Binational Water Issues — Part 4 of 4
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River (GLSL) region has long been an economic powerhouse. The states and provinces that ring this vast freshwater system have a GDP of roughly $12.5 trillion CAD ($9 trillion USD), equivalent to the third largest economy in the world.
The Great Lakes region is home to 107 million people and 51 million jobs, a full third of the combined Canadian and American workforce. And for the industries around this basin, water isn't just the backdrop; it's the input. Shipping fleets move bulk cargo by the tens of millions of tonnes every year, and manufacturing, agriculture and now, increasingly, data centres, all draw on its water directly. Water is at the heart of the entire economic engine.
That's the spirit AquaHacking teams carried into this year's Challenge. This specific binational water issue was: how can we look at energy-intensive or industrial water use as a design constraint to innovate around, one that, solved well, could make the Great Lakes region a model for how fast-growing industries and freshwater stewardship can grow together?
For this Challenge, two Water Issue Leaders shared their expertise with the AquaHacking teams to help them reimagine how the region’s fastest-growing industries can scale sustainably, and to inspire them to develop innovative solutions for efficient industries and energy.
Across the sessions, two core themes surfaced.
The Hidden Water Cost of the AI Boom
The U.S. is currently home to close to 4,770 data centres, compared to nearly 300 in Canada. Approximately one in four is located in the Great Lakes region, where another 738 have either been announced or are under construction.
As data centres process more computing needs, their servers generate more heat, and without effective cooling, equipment can overheat, and digital services can fail. Evaporative cooling, the most common solution, cuts energy use but pulls heavily on freshwater, with up to 85% of the water evaporating and never returning to its source in the water ecosystem. A single large facility can draw up to 5 million gallons (nearly 19 million L) a day, roughly the same as a town of 50,000 people.
Data centres typically measure their energy use, emissions and power availability, but their water usage is harder to gauge: On-site water use is inconsistently tracked, and it also takes water to produce the energy powering these facilities.
Driven by AI, -U.S. data centre water consumption could climb to 73 billion gallons (276 billion L) annually by 2028, up from about 17 billion gallons (64 billion L) in 2023, and based on the current pace, their water consumption could triple by the end of the decade.
There are some solutions already: closed-loop systems can cut freshwater use by up to 70%, and liquid immersion cooling by as much as 91%. Emerging approaches, such as direct chip cooling, AI-managed predictive cooling, and heat recovery, are proving that digital infrastructure and water stewardship don't have to be at odds if we see this booming industry as an opportunity to innovate in the field of water tech.
Keeping the Great Lakes Moving, Sustainably
The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence system moves more than 37 million metric tonnes of cargo a year, mainly bulk commodities like iron ore, coal, limestone and cement. Handling that volume of cargo generates dust, and for decades, the simplest tool for keeping it down has been water: mist cannons, water trucks and wheel-wash systems, all pulled from nearby rivers and lakes. It works, but it comes at a cost, since the dirty water, and whatever else the runoff picks up along the way, flows straight back into the source, polluting our freshwater.
At the same time, the maritime industry is in the middle of a genuine transformation. In April 2026, Michigan finalized its Maritime Strategy, a 10-year plan built around achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 through expanded clean fuel adoption and vessel electrification, while also upgrading its ports and developing its workforce. This is a signal of where the whole region is heading, a model for how the maritime industry can grow in a more sustainable way.
Perhaps the path forward won’t require us to choose between a thriving maritime economy or healthy waterfront communities with clean waterways, but rather finding solutions and innovative ways to modernize the 10,000-year-old shipping industry.
Three teams competed in this AquaHacking Binational Challenge and, thanks to the support and insights they received, one team developed a concrete and innovative solution for the growing data centre industry that will be moving on to the Finale:
WELs
WELs has developed ThermaMound, a data-centre cooling system that applies physics concepts, such as Archimedes' principle and buoyancy, to eliminate the need for mechanical chillers and pumps. Working at the water-energy nexus, the design significantly reduces electricity consumption while conserving local freshwater.
To learn more about all the teams in this year's Challenge, visit: https://aquaaction.org/aquahacking-binational-teams
The Great Lakes region’s data centres and ports are not going away. If anything, both these industries are set to grow faster than ever, one riding the momentum of the AI boom, the other taking concrete steps to decarbonize the global supply chain.
Their dependence on water is exactly what makes this AquaHacking water issue matter: what innovations could allow industries to keep growing without depleting or spoiling the water upon which the region depends, and which made their growth possible in the first place?
Join us on November 5, 2026, for the Binational Finale and see how AquaHacking innovators are turning this opportunity into action! Details are available here.