How much water does a data centre use?

United States data centres directly consumed about 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, up from roughly 5.6 billion gallons in 2014, and about 97% of that came from municipal drinking water systems. Direct cooling water is only part of the picture: the water embedded in the electricity a facility draws is typically the larger share, and it is rarely reported.

A single figure for a data centre is misleading unless the basis is stated. Withdrawal is the volume taken in. Consumption is withdrawal minus what is returned, and it is the figure a watershed actually loses. Most published numbers are withdrawal, and most facilities do not measure the return side at all, because sewer discharge is commonly billed as a fixed percentage of the water meter rather than metered.

Site design changes the answer by an order of magnitude. Evaporative cooling consumes water continuously. Closed-loop and air-cooled designs consume very little during operation, but still use water at initial fill, during maintenance drains, for humidification and for sanitary load, and they usually spend more electricity, which moves water use upstream to the generating station.

Only 47% of operators measured their water use at all in 2025, so for a majority of facilities no measured answer exists.

How much water does a data centre use?

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