Majority of US's new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land

A record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found.

About two-thirds of upcoming datacenters, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year.

Of 809 planned datacenters, 517 are in locations that have been in drought conditions throughout the past year, according to data from Cleanview and the federal government, which grades drought across four levels of severity. A similar proportion of existing datacenters are already situated in drought-affected areas.

More than 60% of the contiguous US is currently at varying stages of drought, the largest expanse for spring in modern records, with a particularly severe lack of rain and snow in the south-east and west desiccating croplands and raising fears of a disastrous wildfire season.

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Scientists havedetermined that the climate crisis, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is worsening the duration and intensity of droughts in the US.

But a stampede of new datacenters are adding extra demands via their hefty energy and water requirements. Large datacenters, some the size of small towns, can require up to 5m gallons of water a day, equivalent to the water use of up to 50,000 people, in order to provide cooling to arrays of humming networked computers.

Overall, the multiplying datacenters across the US are set to demand as much as 73 billion gallons of water a year by 2028, up from about 17 billion gallons in 2023. Each 100-word AI prompt uses up roughly one 500ml bottle of water due to the cooling needs of datacenters, researchers have estimated.

"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," said Christopher Dalbom, an expert in water resources law at Tulane University.

"Even if there wasn't climate change, we'd be feeling the effects of droughts more acutely, because water demand is going up and up, to feed more people and water more lawns and crops. There isn't enough water to go around. Now with this explosion of datacenters, I think a crunch point is inevitable."

Companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are pouring billions of dollars into new datacenters, with developers often drawn to dry, sparsely populated areas, due to the lower cost of land and generous tax breaks. Arid climates are also thought to cause the least amount of corrosion to equipment over time.

One of the world's largest datacenters, a complex twice the size of Manhattan, was last month controversially approved in a Utah county that has been deep in drought since summer last year. Meanwhile, Walla Walla county in Washington, site of a planned Amazon datacenter, has also been overwhelmingly in drought since July last year.

In Texas, two of the largest new datacenters are arriving in counties – Pecos county and Carson county – recently parched by drought. Datacenters could account for 9% of Texas's total water use by 2040, researchers recently calculated, with the state's water development board forecasting Texas will have to deal with rising overall demand and falling supply of water in the decades ahead.

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While an immediate water shortage is unlikely, hard choices will have to be made to avoid future clashes over water access, according to Dalbom. "When we get into a situation where there's a limited amount of water available, are we going to limit water to residents and businesses before datacenters?" he said.

"In the eastern US, we have always assumed an abundance of water, so the legal systems aren't set up for shortages. We can't just assume that people aren't going to be asked to reduce their water use, while datacenters and energy won't be."

Concerns over water use, as well as rising energy bills, have stirred local opposition to a rash of datacenter projects, causing some developments to be curtailed or canceled. These concerns have become a political headache for Republicans – Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of the AI industry – with much of the opposition coming from rural, more conservative areas.

"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," said Andrew Coppin, chief executive of Ranchbot, a company that helps ranchers track their water use.

"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."

Datacenter developers say the industry's current water use is still just a fraction of what much larger consumers, primarily agriculture, already take, causing growing strain on key sources such as the Colorado River. Even the irrigation of golf courses and lawns sucks up more water than datacenters.

"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," said Dan Diorio, vice-president of state policy at the Data Center Coalition.

"The industry is actively prioritizing responsible water use through operational best practices and innovative development strategies, often collaborating with local authorities and conservation organizations on water restoration and reclamation projects. Datacenter operators are among the few private sector industries actively investing in local water infrastructure."

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