US added 127 data centers since 2023 as water stress concerns spread

The United States added 127 data centers since 2023, more than any other country, as concerns about water use spread to smaller nations, according to a TechRadar report citing a Comparitech study. Russia added 77 facilities, a 44% increase, while the United Kingdom added 58, up 12%.

The United States has 5,427 data centers. Russia has 251, just under 5% of the US total. The study uses the World Resources Institute’s definition of water stress: a country is under water stress when it uses more than 80% of its available water supply.

Comparitech rated Chile’s water stress at 4.5 and Belgium’s at 4.4 on its scale, which runs from 1.0 for low stress to 4–5 for extremely high stress. The United States scored 2.6 and the United Kingdom 1.3. Belgium added 12 data center facilities since 2023. The report says data centers can demand up to five million gallons of water a day.

The report also points to security risks from clustering. It cites damage to AWS facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain during the 2026 US/Iran conflict, and Russian attacks on a data center in Kyiv. It says the concentration of facilities can strain local resources and create single points of failure, while making data centers more attractive strategic targets.