Tech giants' nearly $1tn AI buildout raises water worries
Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing fast, and tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are pouring nearly $1 trillion into new infrastructure by 2026.
But all this progress comes with a hidden environmental cost: water use.
Most reports focus on the water needed to cool data centers, but they often miss the bigger picture: tons of water are also used indirectly through electricity generation.
Meta reports 19 billion gallons indirect
Meta is actually keeping track of its indirect water footprint, reporting a massive 19 billion gallons in 2024, more than 20 times what it uses directly.
Studies show that indirect water use for US data centers can be about 12 times higher than direct consumption, raising real worries about local impacts as AI keeps expanding.
Phoenix water risk from data centers
In places like Phoenix, where water is already scarce, data centers could end up using more than 20% of the city's annual supply by 2031.
Some companies are switching to closed-loop cooling systems to cut direct usage, but fossil-fueled electricity still drives huge indirect demand.