AI Water Usage: Tackling Data Center Water Strain

AI is hot, capturing headlines, investments, and users. It also runs hot, literally: The data centers operating artificial intelligence (AI) models use large amounts of electricity and generate enormous heat. To keep servers from overheating, many facilities rely on cooling systems that use water.

Contents

Direct Water Use: Local and Sometimes Stressful

Indirect Water Use: Thirsty Electricity

AI data centers’ water use comes in two forms. Beyond the water that cools the servers, data centers indirectly contribute to water use through the electricity generation needed to power their operations. That indirect use often makes up 80 percent or more of the overall water use.

Reducing AI’s water footprint means tackling two very different issues—what happens inside the data center walls, and what happens beyond them on the power grid.

Direct Water Use: Local and Sometimes Stressful

Just as human bodies cool themselves by sweating, data centers are often cooled by water evaporation—a process that dissipates heat and results in water being lost to the atmosphere, and thus being counted as “consumed.” In many cases, the water is drawn from the same municipal systems that supply homes and businesses.

While most major tech companies now disclose their direct water use, not all data centers follow suit, making the overall picture unclear. In recent reports, companies have estimated that between 45 percent and 60 percent of withdrawn water is consumed.

According to a recent report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the 2023 direct water consumption by data centers in the United States—home to about 40 percent of the world’s data centers—is estimated at roughly 17.5 billion gallons. Assuming a 50 percent consumption ratio, that means 35 billion gallons of water withdrawal, or about 0.3 percent of the total public water supply for the contiguous United States. The same report projects that the U.S. data center direct water consumption could double or even quadruple the 2023 level by 2028.

On the national level, data centers’ water use is relatively modest. But in some regions where data centers are concentrated—and especially in regions already facing shortages—the strain on local water systems can be significant. Bloomberg News reports that about two-thirds of U.S. data centers built since 2022 are in high water-stress areas.

In Newton County, Georgia, some proposed data centers have reportedly requested more water per day than the entire county uses daily. Officials there now face tough choices: reject new projects, require alternative water-efficient cooling systems, invest in costly infrastructure upgrades, or risk imposing water rationing on residents.

The biggest stress may not be total use, but timing. On hot days when residents and businesses need water most, data center water demand spikes too. In Arizona, a data center’s monthly water usage during the summer can be nearly twice its average level.