AquaGrid

Inspiration

Northern Virginia is the world’s largest data center hub. As AI drives new construction, water use for cooling is becoming a critical and overlooked issue.

If a new data center is built here, how much strain does it add to local water systems?

What It Does

AquaGrid is a lightweight simulation tool for civic planners.

Users can:

• View county-level water withdrawal
  
• See existing data centers
  
• Click to propose a new facility
  
• Enter megawatts and cooling type
  
• Instantly calculate % increase in county water use
  

How We Built It

• React + MapLibre (frontend)
  
• FastAPI + Shapely (backend)
  
• OpenStreetMap + static water data
  

Click → detect county → estimate water demand → calculate strain.

What We Learned

Cooling design dramatically changes water impact. Even small percentage increases can represent massive daily water use.

Why It Matters

As AI infrastructure scales, communities need clearer tools to evaluate tradeoffs. AquaGrid helps makes water impact visible before it happens.

Built With

• fastapi
• javascript
• python
• react
• shapely
• uvicorn
• vite