Globally, Meta/Amazon/Microsoft's Water-Hogging Data Centers Proliferating In Areas Already Short Of Water

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Amazon’s three proposed new datacentres in the Aragon region of northern Spain – each next to an existing Amazon datacentre – are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, roughly enough to irrigate 233 hectares (576 acres) of corn, one of the region’s main crops. In practice, the water usage will be even higher as that figure doesn’t take into account water used to generate the electricity that will power the new installations, said Aaron Wemhoff, an energy efficiency specialist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Between them, Amazon’s new datacentres in the Aragon region are predicted to use more electricity than the entire region currently consumes. Meanwhile, Amazon in December asked the regional government for permission to increase water consumption at its three existing datacentres by 48%. Opponents have accused the company of being undemocratic by trying to rush through its application over the Christmas period. More water is needed because “climate change will lead to an increase in global temperatures and the frequency of extreme weather events, including heat waves”, Amazon wrote in its application.

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Amazon is by far the biggest owner of datacentres in the world by dint of its Amazon Web Services cloud division, but Google and Microsoft are catching up. In the US, which boasts the largest number of datacentres in the world, Google is the most likely to build in dry areas, SourceMaterial’s data shows. It has seven active datacentres in parts of the US facing water scarcity and is building six more.

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The surrounding Maricopa county, where Microsoft also has two active datacentres, is facing “extreme drought”, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In June 2023, Arizona state officials revoked construction permits for some new homes there due to a lack of groundwater. Drought has not halted Google’s plans for a second Mesa datacentre, while its first centre has a permit to use 5.5m cubic metres of water a year – about the same quantity used by 23,000 ordinary Arizonans. “Is the increase in tax revenue and the relatively paltry number of jobs worth the water?” said Kathryn Sorensen, an Arizona State University professor and a former director of Mesa’s water department. “It is incumbent on city councils to think very carefully and examine the trade-offs.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water