Tech giants including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are fuelling water consumption concerns as they build AI data centers in drought-prone regions, new investigations reveal.
A Bloomberg analysis found that more than two-thirds of new data centers built since 2022 are located in water-stressed regions, places where people are already struggling to access clean water. These aren’t isolated sites: approximately 160 new AI-focused data centers have been built in the US over the past three years, a 70% increase from the previous three-year period.
“The problem has only deepened in the years since ChatGPT kicked off an AI frenzy,” Bloomberg reported.
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Water-hungry machines in areas contending with droughts
These data centers that power AI tools and cloud services rely heavily on evaporative cooling, a process that consumes millions of liters of water daily to prevent servers from overheating. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a single 100-megawatt data center can use up to 2 million liters of water per day, roughly equal to the daily water use of 6,500 households.
Yet tech companies keep building in hot, dry areas. States like Texas and Arizona, which are already battling historic droughts, are seeing major new data center projects, including a massive $100 billion OpenAI “Stargate” campus in Abilene, Texas.
Globally, data centers already use around 560 billion liters of water annually, and that number could double by 2030, the IEA warns.
SEE: Data Centres Can Cut Energy Use By Up To 30% With Just About 30 Lines of Code, Research Shows
‘It is spreading everywhere’
“This is very much a growing issue — and it is spreading everywhere,” said Newsha Ajami, chief strategy and development officer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in an interview with Bloomberg.
The data center boom is not just a US issue; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India, and China are also building in dry regions, where climate change is already pushing water supplies to the edge.
Even before the AI boom, there were protests in countries like Chile, the Netherlands, and Uruguay over water-guzzling tech projects.
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Secrecy and pushback about data centers’ water usage
Accessing accurate data on corporate water usage has proven difficult. In Oregon, the city of The Dalles tried to block a request from a local newspaper to release Google’s water usage data. After a 13-month legal battle, the city finally agreed to disclose the records.
In Spain, the tech industry is clashing with farmers and environmental activists. Amazon’s three new planned data centers in the Aragon region are licensed to use 755,720 cubic meters of water annually, enough to irrigate more than 570 acres of farmland.
“These data centers use water that comes from northern Aragon, where I am,” said farmer Chechu Sánchez, speaking to The Guardian. “They consume water — where do they take it from? They take it from you, of course.”
An Amazon spokesperson responded: “We know that water is a precious resource, and we’re committed to doing our part to help solve this challenge.”
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‘Water positive’ pledges from three tech giants
In the face of mounting scrutiny, companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have pledged to be “water positive” by 2030, meaning they will return more water to the environment than they consume. But critics argue that “water offsetting” fails to address local shortages.
“Carbon is a global problem — water is more localized,” said Aaron Wemhoff, an energy efficiency expert at Villanova University, in an interview with The Guardian.
Former Amazon sustainability manager Nathan Wangusi echoed those concerns, saying: “I raised the issue in all the right places that this is not ethical.”
Microsoft recently developed a closed-loop cooling system to avoid evaporation, which it plans to use in new facilities in Wisconsin and Arizona. Still, most AI-focused data centers rely on water evaporation, and more of them are expected to do so by 2028, according to a report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
SEE: Amazon and NVIDIA Will Not Stop Building AI Data Centres, Execs Say
A tipping point in green tech?
Despite a wave of green pledges, the demand for more powerful AI — and the facilities to run it — isn’t slowing down. Bloomberg estimates that at least 59 more data centers will be built in US water-stressed regions by 2028, with additional expansion planned globally.
“Is the increase in tax revenue and the relatively paltry number of jobs worth the water?” asked Kathryn Sorensen, a professor at Arizona State University and former water director for Mesa, Arizona.
As the AI boom accelerates, so do concerns about its environmental toll. With data centers expanding into drought-stricken regions, the industry faces growing pressure to balance innovation with sustainability.
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