By Christie U. Omonigho
- Partnership to bring the global desalination and reuse community into the water sector’s most ambitious cross-sector initiatives on artificial intelligence, sustainability, and water resilience
Energy Window International (Media) – gathers that The International Desalination and Reuse Association (IDRA) has joined the Water-AI Nexus™ Center of Excellence, under which IDRA will serve as a supporting organization and then to the Center’s Advisory Council.
IDRA said the partnership would connect its global desalination and reuse network with one of the most ambitious cross-sector initiatives in the water sector today, describing it as “a first-of-its-kind global collaboration” convening leaders in artificial intelligence and sustainable water management to tackle two of the defining challenges of the coming decade: how AI infrastructure impacts water, and how AI can be harnessed to solve pressing water scarcity and management challenges.
Launched in September 2025 according to IDRA’s email statement, the Water-AI Nexus™ Center of Excellence is anchored by a group of founding leaders including the Water Environment Federation, Amazon, The Water Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and Leading Utilities of the World. WEF serves as the Center’s secretariat and convenes its Advisory Council. IDRA said it has joined the Council as a formal supporting organization representing the global desalination and water reuse community.
“Artificial intelligence is reshaping how water is managed, financed, and delivered, and the water sector cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of that conversation,” says Shannon McCarthy, Secretary General of IDRA. “The Water-AI Nexus brings together the organizations that can move this agenda forward at scale. For IDRA’s members, this is a direct line into one of the most important cross-sector conversations happening in our industry today—and a chance to ensure that desalination and reuse are not only part of how AI shapes the future of water, but also essential to meeting AI’s own growing water demands. As data centers and AI systems expand, the linkage between AI-driven water management and the scaling of resilient supply solutions like reuse and desalination becomes increasingly critical.”
“As AI becomes a defining infrastructure of the 21st century, water must be embedded in how it is designed, scaled, and governed. By bringing IDRA into this collaboration, we expand what’s possible, advancing Water for AI by setting a higher bar for stewardship and efficiency, and accelerating AI for Water so that smarter systems, better treatment, and more resilient supplies reach communities everywhere.” Ralph Exton, Executive Director, Water Environment Federation said.
A dual mission: Water for AI and AI for Water
Energy Window International (Media) learnt that Water-AI Nexus™ Center of Excellence operates under a dual mission that captures the two-way relationship between water and artificial intelligence.
Water for AI according to IDRA ensures AI infrastructure, including the data centers that underpin the global AI economy, uses water as efficiently as possible. Adding that the rapid scale-up of AI compute has pushed all attention on the water intensity of digital infrastructure while stressing the need for new standards, in technologies and operational practices to reduce footprint.
Then AI for Water harnesses AI capabilities to solve the water sector’s most pressing challenges, from leak detection and demand forecasting to treatment optimization, asset management, and the integration of non-conventional water resources into utility operations.
The Center’s mission also extends to mentoring students, early-career professionals, and community members in AI-enabled water science and decision-making, building the next generation of water leaders for the AI era, IDRA said.
IDRA says its involvement in this important initiative gives its members, including utilities, technology providers, researchers, financial institutions, and governments in more than 60 countries, access to one of the most important cross-sector conversations in the water industry, alongside WEF’s global network of 30,000 individual members and 75 affiliated Member Associations, as well as Amazon, Leading Utilities of the World, The Water Center at Penn, and the growing community of organizations to joining the Center’s work.
For IDRA and according to it, the partnership is a strategic marker. “Desalination and water reuse are increasingly central to global water security”, with “installed desalination capacity having grown significantly since 2020 and water reuse capacity continuing to scale rapidly as regulators in the US, EU, Middle East, Asia, and beyond move to formalize potable and non-potable reuse frameworks.”
“As the sector enters its fastest growth phase on record, artificial intelligence is emerging as a defining force in how that growth is designed, financed, and operated. By joining the Water-AI Nexus Advisory Council, IDRA ensures that desalination and reuse are represented in that conversation, and that its members have a direct stake in how AI is applied to water infrastructure worldwide.”
