> [!info]- meta > **Source**: [Original URL](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=business&utm_medium=social&utm_source=instagram&embedded-checkout=true) > **Author**: [[bloomberg.com]] > **Full Title**: How AI Demand Is Draining Local Water Supplies > **Category**: #articles > **Tags**: #ai #ecology/water #questions/what-remains-human > **Summary**: Data centers for artificial intelligence use a lot of water to cool their servers, often located in areas already facing water shortages. Since 2022, about two-thirds of new data centers have been built in high water-stress regions, raising concerns about competition for clean water. As tech companies expand their facilities, local communities may struggle to access enough water for their needs. > ## 🔦 Highlights & Commentary - More than 160 new AI data centers have sprung up across the US in the past three years in places with high competition for scarce water resources, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of data from World Resources Institute, a nonprofit research organization, and market intelligence firm DC Byte. That’s a 70% increase from the prior three-year period. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jvpxrbhdyrx9j6vaj6epsxqe)) - As tech firms have pushed to develop new data centers to support cutting-edge AI systems, they’ve increasingly turned to states and countries with ample energy resources and favorable regulations, according to experts. What those places often lack, however, is an abundant supply of water. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jvpxsj9ew6e2nrcwjzkzg7fv)) - More AI means more water. In the US, an average 100-megawatt data center, which uses more power than 75,000 homes combined, also consumes about 2 million liters of water per day, according to an [April report](https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai) on energy and AI from the International Energy Agency (IEA). That’s equivalent to the water consumption of about 6,500 households, the report said. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jvpxxgdx0r83fn8z6xthdn9x)) - Before the AI boom, the biggest US cloud computing companies — Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft and Google — pledged to cut their carbon footprint in the coming years and also be water positive by 2030, meaning they would add more water to the environment than they use. However, the regions with the most available renewable energy resources to support data centers — particularly solar — are sometimes the ones with the least water. Conversely, data centers set up to use less water in hotter regions end up requiring more power to run. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jvpxzzawfde484jvaztfdb7b))