Amazon says data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025
Company disclosures and research show data centers use far less water than farms or lawns overall, while still stressing some local supplies.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
Amazon said its data centers withdrew about 2.5 billion gallons of water worldwide in 2025, adding new detail to a growing debate over the resource costs of AI infrastructure. The company’s figure is small beside national water use totals, but researchers and regional officials say concentrated data center growth can still strain local systems.
Amazon disclosed the number in a Thursday blog post about its sustainability efforts. For comparison, the U.S. Geological Survey said water withdrawals in the United States alone totaled 117 trillion gallons in 2015.
Other water-heavy uses are also far larger than Amazon’s reported data center withdrawals. The Environmental Protection Agency has said U.S. lawns and landscaping use 3.3 trillion gallons annually. The California Water Impact Network has estimated California almond orchards use 1.3 trillion gallons a year, and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America has said U.S. golf courses use 531 billion gallons annually.
Amazon is only one major data center operator. Google reported that its data centers withdrew more than 6.1 billion gallons of water in 2024. Microsoft used about 2.75 billion gallons that year, according to The New York Times, while Meta reported about 1.4 billion gallons in its 2025 environmental data.
A 2021 study in Nature estimated that all U.S. data centers consumed about 163 billion gallons of water that year, including indirect water use tied to non-renewable power generation. More recent regional estimates point to fast growth: an analysis by the Houston Advanced Research Center said Texas data centers used 25 billion to 49 billion gallons in 2024 and could withdraw 399 billion gallons in 2030.
Local pressure remains the risk
The broader totals do not settle concerns in communities where data centers are clustered. The New York Times reported last year that a Meta data center in Newton County, Georgia, used about 10% of the county’s water supply.
The Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin recently estimated that data centers account for 8% of total water consumption in its region. The commission said that share could rise to 29% by 2050 if data center growth in northern Virginia continues at its current pace.
Local infrastructure can face pressure even when national totals appear modest. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has reported that data centers can strain water systems, and Ars Technica reported in May that one data center used millions of gallons from local sources before initially paying for the water.
Water stress is another concern. Business Insider reported in 2025 that 40% of planned and existing U.S. data centers are in areas rated by the World Resources Institute as having high or extremely high water scarcity.
Large technology companies are responding by emphasizing efficiency and water-replenishment projects. Amazon said it has allowed data centers to run at higher temperatures to cut cooling-related water use and said this helped it use less water per kilowatt-hour than other major data center providers.
Amazon also said it is funding 50 water projects expected to return more than 5.8 billion gallons of water each year for local communities. Google has described 165 water stewardship projects and said they are expected to replenish more than 19 billion gallons annually by 2030.
The available figures show two things at once: data centers remain a small share of total water use compared with agriculture, landscaping and other sectors, while individual facilities and regional clusters can create real local burdens. That distinction is becoming more important as AI demand drives more data center construction.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.