How much water do data centers use right now
How much water do data centers use. In the United States, data centers directly consumed 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023, mostly for cooling equipment, a policy research report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation states. That report, published July 6, 2026 by Robin Gaster, a research director there, also states that generating electricity for those same data centers used a further 211 billion gallons that year, more than 10 times the direct total. Combined, that is less than 1% of total United States water consumption. The clearest finding in the report, reached only by reading its full text rather than a summary of it, is that the pressure is not national but regional, sharpest in arid states such as Arizona and in drought affected states such as California, where farm and city demand already strain the same supplies electricity generation also draws from. Robin Gaster states this in the key takeaways section of the report.
There is no national water shortage, but there are significant shortages in arid regions such as Arizona, and in drought stricken areas such as California.
Robin Gaster, Research Director, ITIF Center for Clean Energy Innovation. Source 1.
AKCP, a data center industry vendor, offers everyday comparisons. A single medium sized data center uses roughly 110 million gallons of water a year. Google used about 173.2 million gallons at just 1 of its data centers, in Virginia, and about 8.1 billion gallons across its global data centers, AKCP reports. A golf course in an arid region can use up to 2.08 billion gallons a year, more than either data center figure above.
Google figures here are attributed to source 2, a data center industry vendor, and were not independently confirmed against a report published directly by that company. The golf course figure is the top of the range source 2 gives for a course in an arid region, described there as up to 2.08 billion gallons a year, not a fixed measured point.
Show the numbers
| A medium sized data center, each year | 110 |
| Google, 1 Virginia site, each year | 173.2 |
| A golf course in an arid region, each year | 2080 |
Why artificial intelligence growth changes the math
Artificial intelligence pushes those totals higher fast. A Morgan Stanley research projection, reported by Gadget Review, expects water use by artificial intelligence data centers to reach roughly 1.068 trillion liters a year by 2028, an 11 fold increase from 2024, as computing power dedicated to generative artificial intelligence, software that creates new text, images or other content rather than only retrieving stored answers, expands 8.5 times over the same 4 years. United States data centers currently use roughly 4.4% of national electricity, and that share could reach around 12% by 2028, Gadget Review reports. This concern is not new. A peer reviewed 2023 paper, later accepted by Communications of the ACM, already projected that global artificial intelligence water withdrawal, water pulled from a river, lake or underground supply whether or not it is returned, could reach 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters by 2027, more than the total annual water withdrawal of 4 to 6 countries the size of Denmark.
What state governments are doing about it
States are already responding. A policy research report states that more than 200 bills addressing data centers were introduced across all 50 states in 2025, and more than 40 of them were enacted into law. More than 130 billion dollars in data center projects were delayed or abandoned in the first quarter of 2026 alone, and bans or moratoriums are under discussion in more than 20 states, the same report states.
Each of these 3 counts is itself the floor stated by the policy research report, more than 200, more than 40 and more than 20, not a precise total. The bars show 200, 40 and 20, the lowest number the report confirms was met or exceeded.
Show the numbers
| Bills introduced across all 50 states, 2025 | 200 |
| Bills enacted into law, 2025 | 40 |
| States weighing a ban or moratorium | 20 |
Not every company is only adding to the demand
Microsoft states in its 2026 sustainability report that it replenished, put back into the ground and rivers more water than it withdrew, more than 14.2 million cubic meters company wide in fiscal year 2025. At its Phoenix data center campus, the company cut water use efficiency by 23% that year compared with the year before.