Data center provider partners with “cloud seeding” company to artificially trigger rainfall

A Southern California startup called Rainmaker has partnered with an unnamed data center provider to stimulate rain near data centers through a process called “cloud seeding.” The partnership comes as Western America battles an ongoing drought and data centers face growing backlash over their freshwater usage.

“With cloud seeding, planes or drones release salt compounds into clouds to make them produce rain,” Rachyl Jones writes for the San Francisco Standard. Critics have condemned the practice as “playing god,” and in Florida, cloud seeding is a felony. 

Cloud seeding only works in specific weather conditions and has not historically triggered large amounts of precipitation. However, a recent demonstration by Rainmaker in Alaska that produced enough precipitation over three hours to fill about 28 Olympic-size swimming pools is “promising” according to Bart Geerts, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wyoming.

Rainfall’s partnership with the unnamed data center provider is not the first instance of data centers attempting to address their water usage. Google is investing $30 million into water conservation in Oklahoma while simultaneously planning to build a 506-acre data center in Tusla. The company’s methods of water conservation include removing 2,000 acres of cedar trees along the Arkansas River.