AI & water · 2026
AI's Secret Water Crisis
Every AI answer runs on electricity, and many data centers cool their servers by evaporating water. Here is how big the bill is getting.
The power surge
Data centers' share of US electricity
9–17%
EPRI projects data centers will use 9% to 17% of US electricity by 2030, up from 4–5% today.
Source: EPRI, Powering Intelligence, Feb 2026
Why water?
Evaporation is the cheapest cooler
Many facilities reject server heat through evaporative cooling towers: the water that cools the chips leaves as vapour and has to be replaced from local supplies.
The direct draw
Water consumed on site, 2023
17.4B gal
US data centers directly consumed about 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023, before counting the water used to generate their electricity.
Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2024 US Data Center Energy Usage Report
Per facility
What a 100 MW campus uses
US average site water use0.36 L/kWh
100 MW running all year876 GWh
Water at the average rate≈83M gal/yr
Evaporative sites in hot, dry climates use far more than the average.
Rate: LBNL (2023 fleet average). Annual total is our calculation.
Where it hurts
1 in 4 data centers sits in water-stressed areas
A study mapping 9,347 data centers worldwide found 2,315 in places where water demand exceeds supply for at least one month a year.
Source: American Chemical Society press release, Oct 2026
Hotspot: Phoenix
Desert growth, desert water
The Phoenix area is one of the fastest-growing US data center markets. One report estimates data centers could drive a 22% increase in Phoenix's summer water stress.
Source: The Water Foundation, Water & Data Centers, Jul 2026
The hidden half
The grid drinks too
Thermal power plants use water for cooling, so a data center's true water footprint extends to the electricity it buys. Clean, low-water power cuts both carbon and water.
The fixes
Zero-water cooling is already here
Microsoft chip-cooled design125M L/yr saved
Google fleet efficiency (PUE)1.09
Industry average PUE1.54
Sources: Microsoft, Dec 2024; Google, 2025; Uptime Institute, 2025
Go deeper
Immersion vs direct-to-chip cooling
Our guide compares PUE and water use for air, direct-to-chip and immersion cooling, with sourced benchmarks.
Read the cooling guide
Your next step
How big is your data footprint?
Turn electricity use into Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions with our free GHG Protocol-aligned engine.
Open the GHG Emissions Engine →
Data center cooling guide