Britain does not have enough water for more data centres, the UK's water companies have said, in a damning indictment of Labour's AI growth plans.Water UK has told MPs that the Government fails to make 'a single mention of water' in any of its major AI strategies, and that Environment Agency forecasts on water use were 'fatally flawed' because they did not factor in data centre use.It has warned that the current infrastructure is not prepared for the demands of data centres, which it has accused of favouring cheaper and wasteful 'open loop' cooling to keep equipment from overheating, often evaporating water through cooling towers.If controls aren't brought in on how they use water such as mandating 'closed loop' reuse systems, 'all customers' are at risk of losing their supply during peak periods of demand in future summers, it said.The umbrella group wrote in a submission to the Environmental Audit Committee: 'There appears to be an assumption that the country will always have enough water for its economic needs. Nothing could be further from the truth.'Musician and environment campaigner Feargal Sharkey has called on the new Government to appoint a Minister for Water Strategy to force data centres to use less resources, warning that areas will 'run out of water'. Data centres rely on water to cool down the reams of powerful computers inside, which run all kinds of digital services from web hosting to film streaming, as well as AI services such as ChatGPT.The vast majority of the UK's 520 facilities are based in the South-East, particularly in and around Greater London - critical for financial institutions in the City who rely on 'low latency' internet connections to make rapid trades and other transactions.But plans are afoot to build data centres in more rural areas such as Devon and East Anglia, despite the fact the latter gets less rainfall than any other part of the UK and already faces huge demand for water. Britain does not have the water infrastructure to support plans to triple the capacity of data centres, the UK water industry has warned (pictured: a proposed data centre in Norfolk) Environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey has called on Andy Burnham to appoint a Minister for Water Security to whip data centres into shape (the pair pictured together in 2009)