Amazon’s data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water last year
TL;DR
Just after Seattle enacted a one-year data center moratorium that some of Amazon's own employees pushed for, Amazon shared how much water its data centers use, reportedly for the first time. With concerns about water consumption and energy use a focus of new AI data center construction debates, Amazon says its global data center operations consumed 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025 at a rate of 0.12 liters per kilowatt-hour of electricity, dropping by two percent from its 2024 total even as it expanded operations.
Nauti's Take
The AI cloud now has a water bill, not just a power bill. If you build and scale models, infrastructure can no longer be treated like invisible magic.
Efficiency per kilowatt-hour sounds nice, but absolute consumption decides whether cities cooperate or shut the tap.
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