A Southern California startup called Rainmaker is pitching an unusual fix for one of the tech industry's thorniest public relations problems: instead of just explaining how much water their data centers guzzle, what if companies could make it rain more water back into the ground nearby? Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko says the company is in talks with big tech companies and has already signed a deal with one data center provider, though it has declined to name that partner.
The pitch comes as data centers face growing resistance from local residents and governments across the country, a tension detailed in a report from The San Francisco Standard. Doricko told the outlet there is technically enough water for data centers to use, but that companies want to secure more than enough so that local communities feel they're benefiting from the projects rather than losing out to them. Rainmaker is reportedly exploring ways to stimulate rain near data center sites to bring fresh water back to the ground, and the company says it also aims to help replenish stressed water sources like the Colorado River and the Great Salt Lake, and to support farms.
How the Drones Actually Work
Cloud seeding itself isn't new — scientists have struggled to prove it works reliably since the late 1920s, and the modern version uses planes or drones that release salt compounds into clouds in hopes of coaxing more rain or snow to fall. Rainmaker's approach relies on custom autonomous quadcopter drones nicknamed “Elijah” that release silver iodide particles into clouds at altitudes up to 15,000 feet, according to Sacra. To counter decades of skepticism about whether seeding actually produces measurable rainfall, the company built a ground-based phased-array radar system called “Eden” paired with algorithms designed to show that rain fell specifically along the drones' flight paths rather than occurring naturally.
The company has drawn serious venture backing for that bet. Rainmaker raised a $25 million Series A round in May 2025 led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from 1517 Ventures, Starship Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, and Day One Ventures, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. That brought the El Segundo-based company's total funding above $30 million, and its investors also include Y Combinator's Garry Tan, per the Standard's reporting. One of the company's cited results is an Alaska cloud-seeding experiment that reportedly produced enough precipitation to fill about 28 Olympic-size swimming pools — a result University of Wyoming atmospheric scientist Bart Geerts described as promising, even as he noted that existing cloud-seeding projects generally produce only a small amount of rain.
Skeptics Question Whether Rain Can Fix a Business Model
Not everyone is convinced that seeding clouds addresses the actual problem. UC Riverside's Shaolei Ren has said cloud seeding relies on specific weather conditions and is not a one-size-fits-all solution, since it depends heavily on existing atmospheric moisture and local conditions rather than working anywhere on demand. Tyson Slocum went further, arguing that artificially changing weather patterns cannot solve a lack of sustainability baked into a business model, and he has publicly opposed using cloud seeding as a fix for data centers' water demands.
The skepticism lands amid a well-documented disclosure gap. Data center companies broadly do not disclose how much water they use, and a May 2026 report co-authored by Santa Clara University researchers and Next 10 found that the vast majority of operating and planned data centers in California provide no publicly accessible environmental impact documentation about their water consumption. A July 2026 statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that a majority of California residents oppose local data center construction over environmental impacts, energy demand, and water usage — opposition that's especially strong in California given the state's history of drought. A University of Pennsylvania survey cited by the Standard similarly found a notable share of Americans oppose data centers.
Some Tech Giants Choose Different Fixes
Rainmaker isn't the only approach tech companies are trying. Microsoft has committed to refilling water systems, and Google has funded water recycling initiatives near its own data centers, according to the Standard's reporting. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has emphasized the need to hold corporations accountable for making a positive impact in the communities where they operate.
California lawmakers, meanwhile, have moved toward mandating transparency rather than relying on voluntary offsets. In August and September, the state legislature passed Assembly Bills 2469 and 2619, which require data center developers to disclose water sources and usage estimates under penalty of perjury and to help pay for local infrastructure upgrades, according to CalMatters. That legislative push followed Governor Gavin Newsom's veto last October of a similar disclosure measure, Assembly Bill 93, after pressure from the tech industry. Other states have gone the opposite direction on data centers themselves: Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro have each imposed their own restrictions on the facilities.
Weather Modification's Legal Minefield
Even if the science eventually holds up, Rainmaker and companies like it face a growing patchwork of state bans on weather modification. Tennessee became the first state to explicitly outlaw the practice in April 2024, making the intentional release of atmospheric chemicals illegal under the Tennessee Air Quality Act, per SRM360. Florida went further in 2025, classifying atmospheric weather modification and cloud seeding as a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and fines as high as $100,000 under Senate Bill 56.
The concept of weaponizing weather for practical ends has a long, uneven history in the United States. Federal agencies experimented with large-scale atmospheric intervention as far back as 1962, when Project Stormfury attempted to weaken hurricanes by seeding clouds with silver iodide, according to LiveNOW from FOX. Federal agencies eventually stepped back from those large-scale efforts, and the scientific debate over whether seeding reliably produces rain has never fully resolved.
That unresolved debate is exactly why Rainmaker's pitch to data center operators matters beyond one company's business plan. As data centers directly consumed 17.4 billion gallons of water nationally in 2023 — more than triple the amount in 2014, per Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory research — and indirect water use from power generation ran roughly 12 times higher still, the pressure on tech companies to show some kind of water solution, real or perceived, is only intensifying. Whether drones seeding silver iodide into clouds can meaningfully offset that footprint, or merely offer good publicity while the underlying resource strain continues, remains an open question that scientists like Ren and critics like Slocum say hasn't been answered.
