What If the Next Source of Water Isn’t Underground, But Above Us?

Water is life, but around the world it’s running out. More than 2.2 billion people live without safe drinking water, and regions once abundant with rain are drying faster than they can adapt. As data centers multiply and agriculture expands, the planet’s most essential resource is being consumed faster than it can be replenished.

CEO and Founder Roheen Berry says the water crisis is man-made and solvable. “Every environmental crisis is a design problem we haven’t rethought yet,” he told me. His company Beyond Water, builds atmospheric generators that turn sunlight and air into drinking water—no wells, no pipes, no extraction. “We’ve mastered pulling moisture from the air in a very efficient and healthy way,” he said.

Berry’s shift from manufacturing luxury cars at Weismann Motors to building water systems began with frustration. 

“I grew up in Africa and saw how badly farms suffered,” he said. “Even when it rains, it runs off quickly. My father has farms there, and I thought —we’ve got to do something about this.” 

The breakthrough came when he met a scientist from a space agency at an airport serendipitously.

 “They were using this technology in space,” he recalled. “I asked, why not here?” 

Nine years later, Beyond Water’s units are producing more than 100 million liters annually and, by Berry’s count, saving twice that amount by eliminating bottling, transport, and waste

He describes the filtress process simply: air is cooled until condensation forms, the water passes through mineral stones that “let it extract what it wants,” and a UV cycle sterilizes it. “We don’t put tablets in the water,” he said. “The water makes itself pure.” Internal tests certified by global labs show contamination levels between 9 and 47 particles per molecule, compared with over 300 in common bottled brands.

Berry says the machines are “carbon negative and water positive.” They remove CO₂ while generating clean water and filtered air. 

“For every liter you get, the planet loses nothing,” he said. 

The units run on any renewable power—solar, wind, or recycled energy from industrial flares. In Texas, the Stargate project, which Berry calls “the largest IT infrastructure ever undertaken by man,”is an example he shared to emphasize where Beyond Waters system would be put to good use. Oil-field flare gas is normally burned off, instead feed turbines powering data-center cooling systems, with Beyond Water machines recycling the captured humidity into supply. 

The approach targets two escalating demands- agriculture and computing. The World Bank estimates agriculture uses over 70 percent of global freshwater (WB 2023), while AI-era data centers draw hundreds of billions of gallons a year (EESI). Berry believes atmospheric generation can relieve both. 

“We’re the perfect solution for databases,” he said. “AI will multiply the amount of water required, but we take CO₂ out of the air and give back water that can be recycled forever.”

Pilots are already active in India, Africa, and the Middle East. The company’s first U.S. plant is underway in Florida. 

“The U.S. adapts new technologies faster than anywhere else,” Berry said. “People understand health, nutrition, and good water—they’ll do the right thing if given the chance.” 

He also sees expansion into Latin America and the Caribbean, where many islands still import water. “Antigua literally means ‘anti agua’—without water,” he said. “Imagine producing it right there.”

Berry rejects the outdated process of traditional bottling. He laid out the math-

 “To make one liter of bottled water, you travel to a finite spring, use huge electricity to pump it, diesel to transport it, plastic to store it, and you lose more to evaporation. We can make that same Evian-quality water on-site without moving anything.” For the same cost, he added, “you get ten liters without harming the environment.”

The design principle extends to recycling and the act of eliminating excess. 

“Whatever you use goes back into the air,” Berry said. “Pour it into the ground, drink it—it returns to the atmosphere. You’re not wasting anything.” 

He wants entire cities to adopt that loop. “I’m looking at a country building a new smart city. I’d like every building to run on water from the air, not from finite sources. Let the planet keep what it has.”

An advisor to Beyond Water, underlined the stakes. “Agriculture takes 70 percent of global supply,” he said during the call. “By 2030 some 700 million people could be displaced by scarcity, and by 2040 one in four children will live under extreme water stress.” He calls it a security issue as much as an environmental one: “This isn’t a COP talking point—it’s migration, economics, investment.”

Berry’s forecast is blunt. “In five years people will realize water isn’t free,” he said. “When that happens, our solution may be the only one that doesn’t damage the environment in any way.” Beyond Water’s systems can scale from 250 liters per day to multi-unit grids producing tens of thousands.

Beyond Water plans to release smaller home and office devices that will make the technology as accessible as a coffee machine. “You’ll be able to produce water that fits your mood or mineral preference,” Berry says. 

The machines will connect to an app that monitors production and quality in real time.

Beyond Waters development suggests a shift in how humanity may come to view natural resources—not as static gifts to extract, but as dynamic systems to redesign.
Berry says, “Water can be infinite if we rethink how we make it.”