Amazon reports its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025

In short: Amazon says its global data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025, and it shared annual water data for the first time.

What happened

Amazon published new figures on how much water its data centers use. Data centers are large buildings full of computers that run online services, including AI systems. Amazon said its global data center operations used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025.

Amazon also shared an efficiency number, 0.12 liters of water used per kilowatt-hour of electricity. A kilowatt-hour is a standard way to measure electricity use, like counting how much power a home appliance uses over time. Amazon said its water use rate fell by 2 percent compared to 2024, even as it expanded its data center operations.

The timing matters. Seattle recently approved a one-year pause on new data centers, and some Amazon employees had supported that move. In many places, new data centers are being debated because they can use a lot of electricity and, in some cooling systems, a lot of water.

Why it matters

Water use is becoming part of the public conversation about AI and cloud computing. Cooling big groups of computers can be like cooling a packed restaurant kitchen, because the equipment produces a lot of heat. Amazon says its data centers use air cooling about 90 percent of the time, and use evaporative water cooling only during the hottest hours.

Amazon also says it uses less water per unit of electricity than Microsoft, Google, and Meta, based on public data it cites. However, The Verge notes that Amazon’s numbers do not include indirect water use, such as water used at power plants that generate the electricity, or water tied to building new data centers.

Source: The Verge AI