en.Wedoany.com Reported - Amazon has disclosed for the first time that its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water globally last year. In an official blog post, the company claimed its data centers are seven times more water-efficient than the industry average and highlighted ongoing efforts to conserve water in cooling processes. This disclosure has sparked discussion as the environmental impact of AI data centers and their pressure on surrounding communities draw increasing attention.

A leaked internal memo from 2022 predicted that Amazon's data centers would consume 7.7 billion gallons of water annually by 2030. In October last year, The Guardian reported that the company's water usage in 2021 had already reached 10.5 billion gallons, exceeding the annual water consumption of over 95,000 U.S. households. In November last year, investigative agency SourceMaterial noted that Amazon operates 924 data centers globally, a number expected to grow to meet AI training and service demands.

Amazon did not directly respond to previous media reports in its blog post. The company explained to the media that the 2.5 billion gallon figure is derived from utility water meters and third-party audit agencies. The blog post offered a positive interpretation of this data, stating that according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans use approximately 3.3 trillion gallons of water annually for watering lawns and gardens—more than 1,300 times the water used by its data centers.

The company emphasized that it is extensively using "recycled water," sourced from wastewater treatment plants rather than directly using drinking water. Currently, 26 of Amazon's facilities operate entirely on recycled water, a number the company claims is higher than any other cloud service provider, with an additional 130 such facilities under contract globally. Furthermore, Amazon's data centers rely on water cooling only during the hottest periods of the year, with most cooling achieved by drawing in outside air.

Amazon's long-term goal is to "achieve water positivity by 2030, meaning that for every gallon of water consumed in its data centers, more than one gallon is returned to the environment." The company stated it has reached 75% of this target.

Notably, Amazon's claimed water efficiency advantage has been questioned. The company's reference to "global data centers" may encompass both traditional data centers and AI data centers using high-power GPUs. Tech media outlet The Verge pointed out that a chart in Amazon's blog post comparing its data center water usage with that of Google appears to overlook the fact that Google's water efficiency data only applies to its Gemini AI data centers, making the comparison baseline unequal.

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