When Does Moving Computing West Save Water? A Project-Specific Cooling and Break-Even Analysis of China’s East–Data–West–Computing Strategy

This study combines public cooling evidence, hourly weather data for 2015–2024, a physical heat-rejection model, and provincial electricity-water factors in a project-specific break-even analysis. An audit of 93 mapped records identifies 12 unique western hub projects and four named or cluster-level eastern alternatives, yielding 48 comparisons.

Cooling operation is reconstructed from public evidence where possible and otherwise represented by explicit climate-based scenarios. Under the central assumptions, western combined operational water intensity is lower in 27 of 48 pairs, with changes ranging from −63.5% to +110.4%. Against Guangdong, matched wet-tower designs and facility energy efficiency yield higher mean western consumption because of electricity-related water use.