Amazon’s data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water last year
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- Amazon disclosed its data centers consumed 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025 at a rate of 0.12 liters per kilowatt-hour, a 2% drop from 2024 even as operations expanded
- Amazon released the figures just after Seattle enacted a one-year data center moratorium, a measure some of its own employees pushed for
- Amazon's report claims its data centers beat Microsoft, Google, and Meta on water efficiency per kilowatt-hour, citing a graphic showing each rival using more water
- Google's cited data appears limited to Gemini AI data centers while Amazon's covers all operations, making the direct comparison potentially misleading
- Amazon's disclosure excludes indirect water use at power plants supplying its electricity and water consumed by new data center construction
- Amazon says its data centers use air cooling about 90% of the time, switching to evaporative water cooling only during the hottest hours of the hottest days
- Amazon claims its facilities are seven times more water-efficient than the industry average, derived from an adjusted figure in a peer-reviewed paper released last year
Why it matters: Amazon is the first hyperscaler to publicly quantify its data center water footprint, but the 2.5-billion-gallon figure excludes power-plant water use and is benchmarked against rivals' narrower datasets — meaning the headline efficiency advantage may not survive apples-to-apples comparison as AI-driven water demand draws regulatory scrutiny in cities like Seattle.
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