How much water will Texas data centers use by 2040
How much water will data centers use in Texas by 2040. A white paper, a detailed research report, from the University of Texas at Austin finds data centers could use as much as 9% of all the water used in the state, up from less than 1% today. UT News, the university communications office, reports that finding directly from the study, produced by the COMPASS research consortium, a group of University of Texas researchers who study Texas water and energy systems together. For comparison, manufacturing across the state currently uses about 7% of Texas water, the same study finds.
The data centers today figure is stated only as under 1%, shown here at 1 to place it on the same scale. The 2040 figure is the high end of a range the white paper gives, 3% to 9%, not a single point estimate.
Show the numbers
| Data centers, today | 1 |
| Manufacturing, today | 7 |
| Data centers, 2040 high estimate | 9 |
The range is wide because researchers themselves do not yet know how much water future data centers will actually need. Mariam Arzumanyan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Bureau of Economic Geology, the research unit that produced the study, put it plainly.
There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the water use for data centers.
Mariam Arzumanyan, Postdoctoral fellow, Bureau of Economic Geology, UT Jackson School of Geosciences. Source 1.
That range tracks 3 capacity scenarios the study models for how much computing power Texas data centers could hold by 2040, low, medium and high. Water use rises with capacity in the study own modeling, so a bigger buildout means a bigger water demand.
Water use rises with capacity in the modeling the white paper itself uses, so this same low, medium and high capacity range is why the water use share in the chart above spans 3% to 9%.
Show the numbers
| Low, 2040 | 60 |
| Medium, 2040 | 85 |
| High, 2040 | 110 |
Why the total is not simply added on top
The white paper itself, read directly rather than summarized secondhand, adds an important caution most coverage skips. Its own tables note that total water use should not be read as purely additional to how much Texas already uses. Some of that water, the amount used to generate electricity for data centers, may already be counted inside the state existing category for power plant water use, so simply adding the data center total on top of current demand risks counting some water twice.
The study also maps where the strain concentrates. Projected water shortages in West and Central Texas already overlap with several announced large computing campuses, while water surplus regions in East Texas remain comparatively unused, a mismatch between where data centers are being built and where the water actually is.
The state has already moved to find out
Texas counted 479 data centers operating or under construction in late 2025, a number that grew to 766 by August 2026 once planned and proposed projects are included, the study states. Only 28% of those data centers answered a state mandated survey asking how much water and power they actually use, the Texas Tribune reports. That gap in reporting is why, on September 21, 2026, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing new data center environmental permits entirely, until 2 other state agencies finish auditing the industry water and power use.
The governor named exactly what is now required.
Data centers must pay their own way, protect our grid and water and complete the ERCOT and TWDB audits.
Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas. Source 5.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality must report back to the governor office by October 19, 2026. The state own water plan already expects total demand across every sector combined to grow only 9% between 2020 and 2070, the scale against which a single fast growing sector reaching up to 9% on its own by 2040 stands out.