Tech Giants Water-Guzzling Data Centers: Threat to the Colorado River and the American West

The Colorado River, a vital waterway that spans over 1,450 miles through seven US states, is facing a critical threat. It provides drinking water for 40 million people and supports the agricultural industries of California's Imperial Valley and Arizona's Yuma region, which are among the most productive in the world. However, overuse is threatening to dry up this American artery. Already, some homebuilders in Arizona have stopped work due to fears of insufficient water supply. Cotton farmers in the south of Phoenix have left thousands of acres unplanted. Los Angeles residents have stopped watering their lawns. States are renegotiating allocations guided by the 103-year-old Colorado River Compact. In some of the region's driest stretches, tech companies are bringing a massive influx of water-guzzling data centers. Business Insider's analysis shows that some of these large data centers, which are football-field-size warehouses filled with computer servers powering the artificial intelligence revolution, could each demand millions of gallons of water a day, enough for tens of thousands of Americans. The analysis found that 40% of the nation's planned and existing data centers are in areas characterized as experiencing "extremely high" or "high" water scarcity by the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit focused on sustainability research. The share is even larger, 43%, for the biggest centers, those that use 40 megawatt-hours or more of electricity each hour. Two companies stood out in BI's analysis as having the most data centers in high or extremely high water-stressed areas: Amazon, with 81, and Microsoft, with 23. As a share of their data centers, Microsoft ranks first with 52% in such arid spots. These companies don't seek out locations that are arid—they go to places like Arizona for reasons including abundant land and stable supplies of electricity. They negotiate access with local officials in cities and towns across the country, arguing that the investment, tax revenue, and other economic benefits they bring will be worth it. It can be an attractive proposition, even in parched places like Goodyear, Arizona, which has negotiated for years with Microsoft over a complex of data centers. Data centers historically have needed copious amounts of water to cool their multitudes of powerful computer chips. Use of less water-reliant cooling techniques is growing but remains much less common. Amazon still prefers water-intensive evaporative cooling technologies, though not all its data centers use that method. Unlike farmers or golf courses that have learned to make do with recycled water, data centers that do use water for cooling overwhelmingly rely on fresh supplies. Even before the AI boom, tech giants were known guzzlers. In 2018, the industry was already one of the 10 largest commercial or industrial water users in the US, according to a 2021 paper in Environmental Research Letters. These companies are now pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into expanding their data center operations. Business Insider used permits that data centers must get for their backup generators to create a comprehensive list of facilities and mapped the names and addresses onto the World Resources Institute's water scarcity tracker. We found 24 of the largest centers and 379 smaller ones in the four states now negotiating over Colorado River allotments. Other water-scarce areas across the US, in places including Texas and the upper Midwest, also host large