How Much Water Does a Data Center Use?
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A data center's water use depends entirely on its cooling design: Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) ranges from about 0 L/kWh for air-cooled facilities to roughly 2 L/kWh for evaporative-cooled ones, with closed-loop liquid systems approaching zero. US data centers directly consumed an estimated 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023 (LBNL).
1.8 L/kWh
Blended national average direct-water intensity (all cooling types)
Source: Siddik, Shehabi & Marston 2021, Environ. Res. Lett. — 2021
17.4B gallons
US data center direct water consumption, 2023
Source: LBNL 2024 US Data Center Energy Usage Report — Dec 2024
0.27 L/kWh
Microsoft global fleet-wide WUE, FY25 (as low as 0.03 L/kWh in EMEA)
Source: Microsoft Datacenter Sustainability — FY25
~2.0 L/kWh
Typical evaporative / water-cooled tower systems (specific-technology range)
Source: ISO/IEC 30134-9:2022 (WUE definition) — 2022
Water use by cooling technology
Cooling design is the single biggest driver of a facility's water footprint. Evaporative and open-loop water-cooled systems use the most water — roughly 2 L/kWh — because they rely on evaporation to reject heat efficiently. Air-cooled facilities (direct-expansion or CRAC units, no evaporative assist) use effectively zero water for cooling, trading it for higher electricity consumption and a higher PUE. Closed-loop liquid cooling (direct-to-chip or immersion) sits near-zero, since the coolant recirculates in a sealed loop rather than evaporating — Microsoft has publicly detailed closed-loop, chip-level liquid cooling designs it says consume zero water for cooling.
What we track
Across the 44 facilities with disclosed capacity data on Data Center List (of 6,043 tracked worldwide), disclosed IT capacity totals 12.01 GW, with a further 7.23 GW AI-estimated across 842 additional facilities. Applying the blended 1.8 L/kWh average, that disclosed capacity alone implies roughly 137.0M gallons/day of direct cooling water demand if run at full IT load — illustrative only, since actual utilization and cooling technology vary by site.
How we estimate water use per facility
Very few facilities publicly disclose metered water use, so most per-facility water figures on Data Center List are modeled from leading published research — industry Water Usage Effectiveness studies, the ISO/IEC 30134-9 standard definition, and operator sustainability disclosures — calibrated to each facility's verified attributes (capacity, and cooling type where known). Estimates are always flagged with an AI est. badge and are replaced by real figures as facilities or regulators publish them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE)?
WUE is the industry-standard metric (defined by ISO/IEC 30134-9) for data center water efficiency: the liters of water used per kilowatt-hour of IT equipment energy. Lower is better. A WUE of 0 means no water is used for cooling; hyperscalers like Microsoft report fleet-wide WUE as low as 0.27 L/kWh.
Do all data centers use water for cooling?
No. Air-cooled facilities (direct-expansion or CRAC units with no evaporative assist) use effectively zero water for cooling, trading that for higher electricity use and PUE. Evaporative and water-cooled designs use the most water; closed-loop liquid cooling sits near-zero because the coolant recirculates in a sealed loop.
How much water do US data centers use in total?
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report estimated US data centers directly consumed about 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023 — a small fraction of total US water withdrawals, but concentrated in specific regions and facilities.
Is Data Center List's water figure per facility measured or estimated?
Very few facilities publicly disclose metered water use, so most figures on individual facility pages are modeled — flagged with an 'AI est.' badge. Estimates are calibrated to a facility's cooling type and capacity using the published research classes cited on this page (WUE-by-cooling-type studies, hyperscaler disclosures), and are replaced by real figures whenever a facility publishes one.
Which data centers use the least water?
Closed-loop liquid-cooled and pure air-cooled facilities use the least — near zero for direct on-site cooling water. Microsoft has publicly announced closed-loop chip-level liquid cooling designs intended to consume zero water for cooling entirely.
Related Questions
How much power does a data center use?
PUE benchmarks, hyperscaler efficiency, and disclosed capacity across the facilities we track.
How loud is a data center?
dBA at the source, distance attenuation, and the county/EPA noise standards that regulate it.
How many jobs does a data center create?
Construction vs. operations headcount per MW, sourced to Mangum/NVTC and Brookings.