The next wall for AI isn't power. It's permission.
Water is the constraint no one is pricing — and it kills sites late. SitePower now surfaces water, community, and cyber risk before it stalls your project.
Power is necessary. It is no longer sufficient.
The race to build AI has been a race for megawatts — the interconnection queue, the turbines, the transformers. But a second wall forms behind the first, and it is the one that kills sites late: water. Not because the water isn't there. Because the community says no.
Across the country, allocated, permitted, otherwise-bankable sites are stalling as residents realise what large-scale water draw means for their bills, their taps, their towns. The permit clears — then the opposition arrives. Call it the voters' wall. It tends to appear at month twelve, once the capital is committed and the site is too far along to pivot.
SitePower exists to make good deals go faster by getting the whole site right — not just powered, but resilient, permitted, and able to survive contact with the community.
Resilience gets you built.
The Site Resilience Assessment
One structured read on the four risks that stall data-centre and energy sites — drawing on the Critical Resilience Triad™, the methodology developed by Dr Priscilla Johnson.
Will the water hold?
Supply reliability, water-availability assessment, water-use effectiveness, regulatory permitting, climate-stress trajectory, and community-acceptance risk.
Will the power hold?
Grid stability, power redundancy, energy-architecture resilience, and water-energy interdependency analysis.
Can it be attacked?
Operational-technology and industrial-control-system attack-surface assessment, SCADA vulnerability analysis, and industrial-protocol risk.
Will the community allow it?
Community-sentiment assessment and engagement strategy — surfacing the voters' wall before it forms.
Two ways it de-risks your deal
Find the risk before the site does
Surface water and community risk before it stalls your site — not at month twelve, when the capital is committed and you can't pivot. Enter permitting and community engagement with the risks mapped and a mitigation plan already in hand.
Close the diligence gap
Close the gap that turns a green-lit deal red. Water and community opposition is the risk that surfaces late and strands committed capital — assessed up front, before you commit.
We're proud to be working with Dr Priscilla Johnson
Dr Priscilla Johnson is a critical-infrastructure resilience specialist with 24 years across water and energy. As Microsoft's Director, Water Strategy (2017–2020), she led a 30-member engineering team spanning four continents to bring Microsoft's first hyperscale data centre in Africa online during South Africa's “Day Zero” drought — off-grid, on time, without drawing on the region's drinking water.
She is co-inventor of US Patent 10,757,840, a Microsoft data-centre cooling design that reduces reliance on potable water. Her earlier career spans Pacific Gas & Electric, where she designed data-centre energy-efficiency programmes, and Dow Chemical. She holds a PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Purdue University, serves as Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity and Intelligence at James Madison University, and sits on the water advisory board of Danaher. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and WIRED.
Proven where it counts
A hyperscale launch through a drought
To bring Microsoft's first data centre on the African continent online in 2019 — during a drought so severe officials had named a “Day Zero” for the taps — she built a 30-member team across four continents and took the facility off-grid, on deadline, without using the region's drinking water. The air-to-water solution was delivered by a startup founded by three women (Majik Water); excess water generated on site was delivered to Western Cape orphanages.
Smart metering across 52 hospitals
A parallel programme installed smart water meters across 52 Western Cape hospitals to protect drinking-water supply against future drought — saving an estimated 6.3 billion litres a year.
Data-centre water reuse
A data-centre water-reuse programme in Quincy, Washington — now avoiding roughly 522 million litres of potable-water withdrawal each year.
Efficiency audits at scale
Water- and energy-efficiency audits with Singapore data-centre managers and WSP Australia — pairing operational savings with resilience.
Request a Site Resilience Read
Tell us about your site or project and we'll come back within 48 hours to scope a resilience read.
Platform access is free. A resilience read is an optional engagement to de-risk your site.
- Your name, company, and role
- Project region and site stage
- Scale, and where you think the water or community risk sits