Many data centers rely at least partly on water to absorb heat from air or surfaces, and then cause cooling as it evaporates, just like sweating keeps our bodies cool. The processors inside data centers can reach internal temperatures of up to 176 degrees Fahrenheit, for the same reasons that an overtaxed laptop heats up.
Experts stress that, overall, data center water consumption pales in comparison to the usage by industries like agriculture and some kinds of manufacturing. Researchers have estimated that data center cooling systems consumed 66 billion liters of water in 2023, less than 1 percent of the nation’s total consumption.
Fortunately, engineers say there's a host of things that can be done — and are being done — to reduce the strain on local water resources. "There are many good ideas out there," says energy systems expert Fengqi You of Cornell University. When you add in efforts to replenish and restore natural water resources, "there's a good chance that, eventually, it could be net-zero water for the on-site cooling."
AI's water consumption is one reason why local communities across the United State — such as here, in New York — are protesting against the construction of data centers. (Image credit: Erik McGregor via Getty Images)But even tiny amounts add up, given the rise in AI use. You's group recently predicted that by 2030, US data centers could consume 731 billion to 1,125 billion liters annually — the latter roughly equivalent to New York City's annual drinking water supply.
Experts predict that the use of water for cooling AI data centers, as well as for generating fossil fuel-powered electricity to run them, will rise as numbers of data centers increase. One 2025 study projected future water consumption in the United States under different scenarios and found that solutions such as shifting to renewables, improving the efficiency of AI processors and the strategic siting of data centers could significantly curb AI's water use. (Numbers in blue depict the projected average annual water footprint over the full 2024 to 2030 period under low-demand, mid-demand and high-demand scenarios.) (Image credit: T. XIAO ET AL / NATURE SUSTAINABILITY 2025)You adds that companies should site data centers in areas less prone to drought and with ample renewable energy sources, like regions in Montana, Nebraska, parts of Texas and South Dakota, instead of constructing new data centers in water-stressed places, such as in Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California. Strategic siting along with other measures could reduce AI's future water footprint by up to 86 percent, he says.
New cooling technologies
Pre-AI data centers use fans to carry away the heat from processor-filled racks, then use chilling systems funneling cool water through the building to cool the warm air down again. The heated water is then fed into a cooling tower that removes the heat but also loses some of the water to the atmosphere. This evaporative cooling uses a lot of water, says Eric Masanet of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who researches data center sustainability.
In this method, a system of pipes filled with water, sometimes mixed with temperature-regulating chemicals, runs on top of the hardware, cooling the processors directly rather than cooling the entire data center. And because this is a closed-loop system, no water is lost: The heated fluid can be cooled down by exposing the pipes to the outside air, if conditions are cool enough, or an air-conditioner-like system, which uses energy.
Still, he and his colleagues recently estimated that the state's growing number of data centers — which currently consume less than a percent of the state's water demand — could be using 3 to 9 percent of that water by 2040. He expects that figure to reduce considerably, though. "Data centers are becoming much more efficient in their water usage," he says.
Ren cautions that some companies may not want to run their processors that hot because it can interfere with computational performance, while some also house non-AI servers in the same space that cannot take the heat. But other cooling technologies are in development.
Advances in cooling technology will be necessary for tech companies to meet sustainability goals they have set for their operations. According to a statement from Amazon, its Web Services "set a goal to be water positive by 2030 — returning more water to communities than our direct operations use — and as of 2024, we're more than halfway there."
Related storiesA spokesperson for OpenAI points to a web page outlining the company's plans to minimize water use, while Google aims to replenish 120 percent of the freshwater its data centers consume by 2030 through a variety of water stewardship projects.
The future of AI's water usage hinges on decisions that tech companies, engineers and policymakers will make in the coming years, Masanet says: where data centers are sited, their local energy infrastructure and climate, and how they're designed. "If you choose one set of choices, your number is going to be off the charts," he says. "You choose another set of choices, it's going to be way down here."
This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, a nonprofit publication dedicated to making scientific knowledge accessible to all. Sign up for Knowable Magazine’s newsletter.
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