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AI Data Center Water Usage Statistics: 2026 Report

By Darin ten Bruggencate, Founder, AI Industry Reviews · October 10, 2026

AI runs in large data centers, and many of them use water to keep their equipment cool. Large cloud and data center operators now publish yearly figures on how much water they use. But each company reports them in its own way, which makes them hard to compare.

Our analysts studied six of them: Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Equinix and Digital Realty. We took the figures from each company's latest report as of October 8, 2026, from the Google 2026 Environmental Report (2025 data) to the Digital Realty 2025 Impact Report. Our main measure is water withdrawal, the total water a company takes in during a year, stated in megaliters (ML, one million liters). Google's data centers withdrew 51,338 ML in 2025, 1.33 times the 38,679 ML reported by the other five companies combined.

In the following sections, we compare withdrawal and consumption by company, track withdrawal over time, compare water usage effectiveness, and look at water use in water-stressed areas.

AI Data Center Water Withdrawal by Company

The AI Industry Reviews research team compared how much water each company withdrew from local supplies in its latest reported year, with every figure converted to megaliters.

AI Data Center Water Withdrawal, Latest Reported Year

• Google's data centers withdrew 51,338 ML in 2025. That is 1.33 times the 38,679 ML reported by the other five companies combined, counting Microsoft's company-wide total and Meta's data center total.
• Data centers made up 92.3% of Google's withdrawal and 73.5% of Meta's.
• Google's Council Bluffs, Iowa, data center withdrew 1,746.4 million gallons (6,611 ML) in 2025, more than Equinix's whole portfolio.
• For communities near data centers, a few sites draw most of the water. Google's Council Bluffs site alone withdrew 6,611 ML in 2025, more than Equinix's whole portfolio, and 80.7% of Google's data center water came from potable supplies. Towns hosting large sites are likely to face growing pressure on drinking water systems.
• Google drew 80.7% of its data center water from potable supplies (10,949 million gallons). Digital Realty drew 55.5% from potable city water and 44.1% from non-potable city water.

AI Data Center Water Consumption

Some of the water a data center takes in goes back to rivers and treatment plants, and the rest evaporates in cooling or is otherwise not returned. That second part is called consumption, and it is the water a local area does not get back. AWS reports withdrawal only. Digital Realty reports water by source and labels the total as consumption in its assurance statement, but it reports no discharge, so its figure is shown here as withdrawal.

AI Data Center Water Consumption, Latest Reported Year

• The four companies that report consumption kept between 61.6% and 77.6% of the water they withdrew. The median is 74.0%.
• Google's data centers consumed 10,523 million gallons (39,834 ML) in 2025. Company-wide consumption rose 33.6%, from 8,135 to 10,869 million gallons.
• Google's four largest data center sites by consumption (Council Bluffs, Mayes County in Oklahoma, Berkeley County in South Carolina and New Albany in Ohio) consumed 4,164.8 million gallons, 39.6% of its data center total.
• Most of the water data centers take is not returned. The four companies that report consumption kept a median 74.0% of what they withdrew, and Google's consumption rose 33.6% in 2025. As AI capacity grows, local water budgets will feel the effect more than withdrawal totals suggest.

AI Data Center Water Withdrawal Over Time

Five companies report more than one year of withdrawal. AWS reports a single year.

AI Data Center Water Withdrawal Trend

• Google's withdrawal grew faster than any other company's in the set, rising by 13,923 ML in 2025 alone. That one-year increase is larger than Microsoft's full FY25 total.
• Microsoft's company-wide withdrawal nearly doubled from FY20 to FY25.
• Digital Realty's report text says its managed portfolio grew 34% from 2023 to 2025 while total water use rose 3%. The appendix table in the same report shows total water 2.6% lower in 2025 than in 2023, so the two figures do not match.
• Water use is rising fastest at the largest AI builders. Google added 13,923 ML of withdrawal in 2025, more than Microsoft's entire FY25 total, and Microsoft's use nearly doubled from FY20. If this pace continues, water will become a bigger factor in where new data centers can be built.

Data Center Water Usage Effectiveness

Total water use rises as a company builds more data centers, so operators also report an efficiency figure that shows how much water they use for each unit of electricity their computers draw.

Water usage effectiveness (WUE) is liters of water per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity used by IT equipment. Each company defines the water side differently, so the figures cannot be ranked against each other as equals.

Data Center Water Usage Effectiveness as Reported

• AWS cut its WUE from 0.25 in 2021 to 0.12 in 2025, a 52% drop by its own count.
• Meta was the only company whose WUE rose in its latest year, from 0.18 to 0.19.
• Sites that cool with evaporation run far higher: Equinix reports 1.41 for those sites and Digital Realty 1.73. Digital Realty's sites without evaporative cooling averaged 0.07, and it says 25% of its sites use evaporative cooling.
• Efficiency gains are real but uneven, and cooling choices matter most. AWS halved its WUE to 0.12 since 2021, while evaporative sites run at 1.41 to 1.73 and Meta's rose. Operators are likely to shift away from evaporative cooling in dry regions.

AI Data Center Water Use in Water-Stressed Areas

Each company also reports how much of its water comes from areas it classes as water-stressed, meaning places where demand for water is high compared with the supply available.

Each company uses its own water-stress screen and cutoff, so the shares below measure different things.

Share of Water From Stressed Areas, Latest Reported Year

• Microsoft withdrew 6,659 ML from areas with high or extremely high baseline water stress in FY25, half of its company-wide withdrawal. Its fact sheet says this water came mainly from third-party suppliers.
• Equinix consumed 1,630 ML in high-stress areas in 2025, 35.4% of its total consumption.
• A large share of data center water comes from places already short of it. Half of Microsoft's withdrawal and 35.4% of Equinix's consumption were in high-stress areas. Regulators and residents in those regions are likely to push harder for limits and replenishment commitments.

What AI Data Center Water Usage Trends Mean for 2027 and Beyond

AI data centers use most of their water in a few places, and those places feel it. A single large campus can draw as much as a small town, and some of that water comes from regions already short on it. How a site is cooled matters more than anything else, because sites that cool by evaporation use far more water than those that do not.

As AI capacity grows, water will play a bigger role in where companies can build. Local officials are starting to weigh water supply in permit decisions, and towns in dry regions may push back or demand cooling designs that use less. Efficiency gains help, but not enough to offset the growth in demand.

So if a data center is proposed near you, ask how it will be cooled and where its water will come from, because that decides how much it takes from the local supply.