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Monday, Aug 11, 2025
Outside the box.
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Microsoft’s Stargate facility used over 460 million gallons as local families are told to cut back on showers and stop watering lawns
Microsoft’s Stargate data center near Abilene, Texas, consumed an estimated 463 million gallons of water between 2023 and 2024, according to recent disclosures.
This occurred while drought conditions prompted strict conservation rules for local residents.
In areas like San Antonio, authorities enforced Stage 3 water restrictions, allowing lawn watering only once a week and placing surcharges on excessive residential water use.
Despite these household limits, data centers were not subject to comparable restrictions.
Many of these facilities use evaporative cooling systems that lose most of their water to the atmosphere, rather than recycling it.
Midsize data centers typically use around 300,000 gallons of water per day, while larger campuses can consume up to 4.5 million gallons daily.
A Texas Water Development Board estimate projects that statewide data center water use will reach about 49 billion gallons in 2025 and could climb to 399 billion gallons by 2030, representing nearly 7 percent of Texas’s total water use.
Globally, AI-related data centers are currently consuming more than 560 billion liters of water annually—roughly equal to 224,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
More than two-thirds of new data centers built since 2022 have been located in water-stressed regions, including Texas, Arizona, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have pledged to become water-positive by 2030, but critics note that these goals often rely on offset measures that may not address local shortages.
Some data centers in Texas have started testing water-saving alternatives, such as nighttime operations, rainwater collection, and closed-loop cooling systems.
However, most facilities continue using high-consumption methods.
In Marfa, West Texas, a proposed data center linked to the Stargate initiative could draw up to 800 acre-feet of groundwater annually—exceeding the entire city's current usage.
Meanwhile, energy infrastructure projects like the Hypergrid complex near Amarillo are being developed to support growing data center demand, combining nuclear, solar, battery, and gas sources.
This occurred while drought conditions prompted strict conservation rules for local residents.
In areas like San Antonio, authorities enforced Stage 3 water restrictions, allowing lawn watering only once a week and placing surcharges on excessive residential water use.
Despite these household limits, data centers were not subject to comparable restrictions.
Many of these facilities use evaporative cooling systems that lose most of their water to the atmosphere, rather than recycling it.
Midsize data centers typically use around 300,000 gallons of water per day, while larger campuses can consume up to 4.5 million gallons daily.
A Texas Water Development Board estimate projects that statewide data center water use will reach about 49 billion gallons in 2025 and could climb to 399 billion gallons by 2030, representing nearly 7 percent of Texas’s total water use.
Globally, AI-related data centers are currently consuming more than 560 billion liters of water annually—roughly equal to 224,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
More than two-thirds of new data centers built since 2022 have been located in water-stressed regions, including Texas, Arizona, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have pledged to become water-positive by 2030, but critics note that these goals often rely on offset measures that may not address local shortages.
Some data centers in Texas have started testing water-saving alternatives, such as nighttime operations, rainwater collection, and closed-loop cooling systems.
However, most facilities continue using high-consumption methods.
In Marfa, West Texas, a proposed data center linked to the Stargate initiative could draw up to 800 acre-feet of groundwater annually—exceeding the entire city's current usage.
Meanwhile, energy infrastructure projects like the Hypergrid complex near Amarillo are being developed to support growing data center demand, combining nuclear, solar, battery, and gas sources.
