The Real Water Cost of AI Isn't Inside Data Centers. But Tech Companies Don’t Report It.

TL;DR: The real water consumption of AI data centers is mainly not inside the data centers themselves, but in the power generation that supplies them; tech companies generally conceal this indirect water footprint, and residents and farmers in the arid southwestern U.S. are paying the price. ## A Western Water Rights Battle Stirred Up by the Arrival of Data Centers In the American West, who holds priority rights to water has always been a long-running struggle. The arrival of data centers has made the situation even more complicated. About two-thirds of new data centers currently under construction are being built in drought-prone areas. Local farmers' anger is bluntly expressed: > "I want to ask those farmers why they keep expanding their pecan orchards? Data centers use more water than those orchards." > "I hope those people who support data centers can eat computer chips, because where are they going to get food afterward?" Driven by local tax breaks and a race to build in the industry-wide scramble for space, these companies promise they won't add to the water burden. There's a claim that a data center's "year-round daily water usage is roughly equivalent to that of an ordinary restaurant." But is that really the truth? The water used inside a data center is just the tip of the iceberg. As one resident put it: "We've all noticed that our home wells have just about run dry. Everything is kept under wraps." To find out just how much water the AI boom actually requires, reporters traveled to El Paso, Texas, and southern New Mexico—where Meta, Oracle, and OpenAI are building massive data centers. ## Farmers Collide with "Project Jupiter" Roberto Roque is a third-generation pecan farmer in southern New Mexico. His goal is about 2,000 pounds per acre, roughly 50 to 60 pecans per tree. Like many farmers in the Southwest, he has watched his water sources dwindle after years of drought. > "We can no longer rely on water flowing down from the Rocky Mountains, and we've had to invest in drilling agricultural wells. It's become very expensive." Now, the situation has become even more complicated because a new water-hungry player has arrived in town: data centers. Roberto lives just a few miles from Project Jupiter—a 1,400-acre data center campus that OpenAI and Oracle are building. The two companies say it only needs a one-time injection of about 11 million gallons of water to start up and cool four buildings. Roberto isn't buying it: > "They like to tell us that compared to farmers' water use, this only accounts for a very small percentage. But who is metering their water? How would we know? They haven't told the community the truth. They haven't been transparent." ## Evasive Public Records: Google Uses 1.5 Million Gallons of Water Per Day Across the country, residents and researchers have been pushing data centers to disclose their actual water usage by filing public records requests. But the responses they get are either vague or heavily redacted—like the water agreement signed for Amazon's data centers in Stafford County, Virginia. In the reporter's home state of Oregon, Google's data center water usage data was deemed a trade secret. After 13 months of litigation, the documents were finally disclosed: Google uses up to 1.5 million gallons of water per day—equivalent to 40% of the city's total water consumption. But even that figure is misleading. Alex de Vries-Gao, an academic who studies data center water usage, points out: > "The largest portion of a data center's water footprint is not inside the data center. It's indirect water consumption, coming from the process of generating electricity to power the data center. That's the part those tech companies don't disclose. But if you only talk about what happens on-site, you're missing the vast majority of the impact." This is exactly what farmers and residents on the New Mexico–Texas border worry about most. Veronica Carbajal, a community organizer and lawyer, was born and raised in El Paso. She says: > "When we found out data centers were moving in, we understood that we were going to lose our water." ## Meta Arrives in El Paso: 0.4% or Massive Strain? Big tech companies are flocking to the American Southwest because land is cheap, there are tax incentives, power is abundant—and they treat water scarcity as a problem that can be solved. Meta's construction site in El Paso broke ground in October 2025. Meta said: > "This facility will be an extremely low water user. In fact, we've adopted a closed-loop system that essentially recirculates the same water over and over as a cooling technique." However, in 2025, 20% of El Paso's water was used just for cooling power plants that supply the local grid. As more data centers come online, demand will only increase. Once fully built, Meta's new data center could account for 43% of El Paso Electric's peak load. > "A new major electricity user, Meta, wants to use 1,000 megawatts of power. This will sharply drive up demand for water." John Balliew, CEO of El Paso Water, insists that concerns about Meta's water usage are overstated: > "Meta's arrival is just a drop in the bucket. It will only add 0.4% to total water usage. So it's not a big deal. We already have a plan. We have a sustainable water supply." Residents beg to differ: > "We've asked them again and again, why do they always say one thing and do another? To a big user like Meta, they say: 'Don't worry, we have plenty of water.' Then to residents they say: 'We have no choice but to raise water rates because we're running out of water.'" In fact, El Paso Water has raised rates for residents 11 years in a row, with another double-digit increase coming in 2026. At a city council meeting this June, fed-up residents demanded the city cancel its agreement with Meta. Someone said at the meeting: > "The most violent act in this deal is selling the water. In a desert region facing climate collapse, oligarchs have decided that water is a commodity that can be sold to data centers for profit." But the city council voted 5 to 3 to keep the deal. One speaker warned: > "Given how enormous these numbers are, we may see more people start protesting—once they figure out just how big the impact of these data centers really is." ## Indirect Water Footprint: 10 to 24 Times Direct Water Use Alex de Vries-Gao has written multiple peer-reviewed papers on data center water usage. He says: > "In my research I found that, on average, the water consumed to generate electricity—the power that ultimately goes to data centers—is ten times the amount actually consumed inside the data center. But they typically don't report that number. Only Meta has published this figure, and in their case, the indirect water footprint is 24 times larger than the direct water use inside the data center." These figures are staggering, and it's unclear whether local leaders making decisions are aware of them. The reporter attempted to ask a city councilwoman a question at her community meeting. Cynthia Boyar Trejo is the council representative for the district where the Meta data center is located. Despite more than 200 people protesting at city hall, she still voted to support Meta. She declined an interview, and the reporter was subsequently asked to leave. Veronica Carbajal believes this is the result of concentrated economic power: > "What's happening in El Paso is that economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few. Here in El Paso and the border metro region, we have to get on the AI train. They're private bosses running private businesses who are recruiting other businesses and companies to El Paso. This is a system of paying to buy your way in." ## Conflicts of Interest: Water Rights Deals Shrouded in NDAs Case in point: local businessman Lane Gaddy sits on the El Paso Water board, which is supplying water to Meta's $10 billion data center. At the same time, he is selling part of his water rights from his own turf farm in New Mexico to Oracle's Project Jupiter—the amount undisclosed. When the reporter asked Gaddy whether he would be willing to do an on-the-record interview, he said he had signed a non-disclosure agreement. Is this a conflict of interest? Carbajal answered directly: > "This case is obvious. When you sit on a board that directly manages water, then you have a conflict of interest." > "The tech companies say they have nothing to hide, and local officials believe them. But on the other hand, I've been escorted out of public meetings and run into all sorts of NDAs." ## Industry Perspective: Economic Development Is Worth the Price Across the country, no one seems to agree on—or be willing to publicly discuss—the data and technical details behind major data center water decisions. But one person agreed to an interview: Jerry Pacheco, who leads the Border Industrial Association, a trade and advocacy organization. > "This industry is growing by the minute. These companies are betting huge sums, tens of billions of dollars, on who can build their data center first. Oracle is competing with Meta, competing with Google. All of these companies are racing for the next wave." When the reporter asked whether communities don't have the right to figure out the water usage before agreeing, Pacheco replied: > "That's exactly what breaks my heart. They are telling them what the water usage is, right?" But de Vries-Gao said it plainly: they aren't. He calculates that AI systems' total water consumption may already be around 20 billion gallons per year—nearly twice the total global bottled water supply. And it's not just his numbers that are alarming. According to a recent UN report, in 2025 alone, the water footprint corresponding to data center electricity consumption was about 1.2 trillion gallons. That's enough to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. ## Refusal to Disclose and Policy Pushback We're seeing tech companies not only refuse to disclose data, but actively lobby against disclosure. In Texas, lawmakers sent survey questionnaires to 341 data centers asking about their water usage. Only 17% responded. One lawmaker pushing