Two-thirds of the nation's planned artificial intelligence datacenters will be built in drought-stricken areas, according to analysis of federal drought data and project databases. Of 809 planned facilities, 517 are slated for locations experiencing persistent drought conditions over the past year, even as the continental United States faces its driest spring on record.
The conflict between AI expansion and water scarcity is intensifying across the country. Large datacenters consume up to 5 million gallons of water daily for cooling systems, equivalent to the daily water use of 50,000 people. Collectively, the sector's water demand is projected to jump from 17 billion gallons in 2023 to 73 billion gallons annually by 2028. A single 100-word AI prompt requires roughly one 500-milliliter bottle of water to process.
Tech giants including Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon are funneling billions into new facilities, drawn to arid regions by cheap land, generous tax incentives, and lower equipment corrosion rates. This strategy has collided directly with communities already rationing water. Utah recently approved a massive datacenter complex twice the size of Manhattan in a county deep in drought since summer 2023. Amazon is planning a facility in Washington's water-stressed Walla Walla County, while Texas is welcoming two major datacenters in some of the state's most parched counties.
Christopher Dalbom, a water resources law expert at Tulane University, warned of inevitable conflict. "The AI industry is sprinting as fast as it can to gain market dominance, and the rest of us have to deal with a great increase in water demand in places already in drought," he said. "There isn't enough water to go around. Now with this explosion of datacenters, I think a crunch point is inevitable."
Local resistance is mounting. In Utah, the proposed Stratos datacenter backed by investor Kevin O'Leary has triggered unprecedented coalition-building between urban and rural communities, farmers, and environmentalists. Ben Abbott, an ecologist at Brigham Young University and director of environmental group Grow the Flow, stated flatly: "I haven't found a single person in favor of this." A public referendum effort is underway to overturn county approval.
Ranchers and agricultural interests are particularly vocal. Andrew Coppin, chief executive of Ranchbot, a company tracking water use on ranches, said: "Ranchers are being told to be conservative with water, to not waste water, and now there's a new competing interest able to get near unlimited access to water. The concerns from farmers are real and justified. Datacenters are flavor of the month now, but we wouldn't make the choice to only be able to have a shower on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I mean, ChatGPT is a pretty nice tool, but most people would prefer to have a beef steak if they had to choose."
The industry argues that datacenters currently use a fraction of what agriculture consumes and that operators are investing in water infrastructure improvements. Dan Diorio, vice-president of state policy at the Data Center Coalition, said: "Datacenter operators work closely with local authorities to ensure compliance with all applicable rules and regulations and to ensure operations do not stress local water supplies."
Some developers are switching to closed-loop cooling systems that recirculate the same coolant rather than drawing fresh water. The tradeoff, however, is energy-intensive. Meta's planned Hyperion facility in Louisiana will use closed-loop cooling but requires the power output of 10 natural gas plants, which themselves consume enormous quantities of water for electricity generation and emit planet-warming gases.
Legal and regulatory battles are accelerating. California, Michigan, and Iowa are considering bills requiring water use reporting. South Carolina and Kansas may mandate closed-loop cooling systems. New York lawmakers are drafting an outright moratorium on new datacenters. Public opinion is decidedly against expansion, with 70 percent of Americans saying they would not want to live near a datacenter.
The broader picture extends beyond facility cooling. A January study found that datacenters will account for just 4 percent of the 30 trillion gallons of additional water needed globally for AI expansion by mid-century. Power generation and semiconductor manufacturing will demand substantially more. The United Nations estimates that datacenters alone will consume 9.3 trillion liters of water in the coming decade, enough to meet humanity's drinking water needs for over a year.
Dalbom cautioned that cumulative harm could prove devastating even without an immediate crisis. "When multiple datacenters draw down the same aquifer you get a death by a thousand cuts," he said. "You may see the water table going down so wells will have to be deeper to access the groundwater. There will still be water there but it will cost more to access."
Author James Rodriguez: "The tech industry is gambling that water abundance and legal structures designed for plenty will continue indefinitely. They're wrong, and communities are finally calling the bluff."
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