Data centers in 7 US states linked to 10.4 million acre-feet of annual water withdrawals

A new report from nonprofit think tank Ceres estimates that data centers across 7 US states use 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater annually, equivalent to 10.4 million acre-feet. The states are Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona.

Bloomberg Law’s Bobby Magill compared the estimate with California’s annual urban water use of 8 million acre-feet, based on a 2021 report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The comparison has an important limitation: Ceres measures water withdrawals, including water that may be returned to its source, while the California figure measures water delivered and applied to residential, commercial, industrial, and landscape uses.

Ceres says withdrawals indicate the volume an asset depends on to operate and can show risk exposure for communities affected by drought. However, much of the measured electricity comes from hydropower, meaning the water may not be consumed in the same way as water used for cooling.

Researchers at Arizona State University, using 2024 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data, estimated indirect US data-center consumption at about 650,000 acre-feet per year. That figure suggests consumption could be a fraction of Ceres’ estimate unless it rose to 16 times the reported level.

Ceres projects that power generation could represent 72 percent of total US data-center water consumption by 2030. It also said local opposition disrupted $130 billion of projects in the first quarter of 2026.