Why a Joke About Pee Could Matter to Your Business
A viral campaign joking about using human urine to cool artificial intelligence data centres sounds like internet nonsense. Yet behind the punchline is a serious business issue: modern computing needs substantial cooling, and the water used for that cooling can affect communities, regulators, landlords and customers.
For a Malaysian SME, this matters even if you do not operate a data centre. You may use cloud accounting, online sales platforms, customer relationship management software, AI writing tools, video hosting, cybersecurity services or enterprise applications. Those digital services run on physical servers somewhere. As demand for AI grows, the environmental footprint of the infrastructure supporting everyday business technology is becoming harder to ignore.
The useful lesson is not that you should collect urine for a server room. It is that water reuse, infrastructure planning and supplier accountability are becoming part of responsible technology management. A small business can respond by asking better questions, reducing unnecessary computing and choosing partners that publish credible environmental information.
What Happened
According to TechCrunch, beverage brand Liquid Death and former Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce released a humorous campaign suggesting that people’s urine could help cool AI data centres. The advertisement was intentionally absurd, but experts interviewed by TechCrunch explained that the underlying concept had a scientific basis: wastewater can be treated and reused for industrial cooling.
Untreated urine is not suitable for a cooling tower. It contains salts, urea, bacteria and organic matter that can create mineral deposits and require constant cleaning, according to water-reuse experts quoted by TechCrunch. The practical approach is to process sewage and wastewater through treatment systems such as membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet treatment before using the resulting recycled water.
The scale of the challenge is significant. In Loudoun County, Virginia, data centres used about 200 million gallons of recycled water per day in 2025, but this represented only 43% of their daily water use; the remaining 57% came from potable supplies, according to figures cited by TechCrunch and attributed to Loudoun Water. The example shows that recycling can reduce pressure on drinking-water supplies, but it requires large treatment facilities, pipes and long-term planning.
Why This Matters for Malaysian SMEs
Malaysia is rapidly becoming a regional digital and data-centre hub. That creates opportunities for cloud services, software vendors, cybersecurity firms, logistics providers, electrical contractors, facility managers and professional services businesses. It also increases the importance of water, power and environmental planning around digital infrastructure.
You may not be able to influence the design of a hyperscale facility, but you can influence your own technology choices. For example, a Malaysian online retailer can review whether its product images are unnecessarily large, whether inactive customer records are retained forever and whether automated AI jobs run more frequently than needed. A restaurant group can select a cloud-based point-of-sale provider that documents its hosting arrangements. An accounting practice can ask whether its software provider reports energy or water-management initiatives.
These decisions are practical, not merely environmental. Efficient systems can improve page speed, reduce storage clutter, simplify backups and make business information easier to manage. They can also strengthen your response when customers, corporate buyers or regulators ask how your business handles data and sustainability.
For SMEs located near industrial parks or planned infrastructure projects, water availability may become a community and business-planning issue. A new data centre can create demand for contractors and suppliers, but it can also place pressure on utilities. Before expanding into a location, you should understand the reliability of water, electricity, drainage and internet services. Do not assume that a digitally advanced area automatically has sufficient capacity for every business requirement.
| Business area | Useful action for you | Business benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud software | Ask providers where workloads are hosted and whether they publish environmental policies. | Better supplier visibility and risk management. |
| AI tools | Use AI for defined tasks instead of running repeated or unnecessary automations. | Cleaner workflows and less digital waste. |
| Data storage | Remove duplicate files and set retention rules for old records. | Faster searches, simpler backups and stronger governance. |
| Premises planning | Check utility capacity before moving, expanding or adding equipment. | Fewer operational interruptions. |
What You Can Do This Quarter
Start with a simple technology inventory. List every cloud application, AI service, hosting account and backup platform your team uses. Record the business purpose, owner, data stored and whether the service is still needed. This often reveals abandoned subscriptions, duplicated systems and automations that no longer support daily work.
Next, introduce a basic data-retention policy. Keep invoices, payroll information, contracts and customer records according to your legal and operational needs, but avoid treating every file as permanently necessary. Separate active information from archives, delete duplicates and restrict unnecessary copies. Your staff will spend less time searching, while your backup environment becomes easier to control.
When selecting a new provider, include environmental and infrastructure questions in your procurement checklist. Ask whether the provider uses renewable energy, recycled water, efficient cooling systems or recognised reporting frameworks. Do not accept vague claims as proof. Look for a published sustainability report, a clear data-centre location, measurable targets or independent verification.
The practical question is not “Can we cool servers with pee?” It is “What resources does our digital supplier use, and what evidence shows that it manages them responsibly?”
The Bigger Picture
The story highlights a shift in how society views AI. Artificial intelligence is no longer seen only as software floating in the cloud. It depends on buildings, chips, electricity, cooling equipment, water systems, land and skilled workers. Public concern about these resources is growing, and the TechCrunch report noted that a Gallup poll found about seven in ten Americans opposed data centres in their communities.
That public reaction can affect technology providers and their business customers. Cloud companies may face stronger reporting requirements. Local authorities may demand infrastructure commitments. Large corporate buyers may include water and energy questions in supplier assessments. Even if your company is small, these expectations can reach you through tenders, partnerships and customer questionnaires.
There is also a local opportunity. Malaysian SMEs can support the wider digital ecosystem by supplying water-treatment services, monitoring equipment, facility maintenance, energy-management systems, compliance support and industrial automation. Businesses that understand both technology and resource efficiency may become valuable partners as data infrastructure expands.
For your company, the immediate priority is sensible digital management. Use AI where it improves a real process, measure the tools you depend on, remove waste from your data operations and ask providers how they manage physical resources. The strange cooling advert succeeded because it made an invisible infrastructure problem visible. Your next step is to turn that awareness into better technology decisions.
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