Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land

A record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found.

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Overall, the multiplying datacenters across the US are set to demand as much as 73bn gallons of water a year by 2028, up from about 17bn gallons in 2023. Each 100-word AI prompt uses up roughly one 500ml bottle of water due to the cooling needs of datacenters, researchers have estimated .

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Companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are pouring billions of dollars into new datacenters, with developers often drawn to dry, sparsely populated areas, due to the lower cost of land and generous tax breaks . Arid climates are also thought to cause the least amount of corrosion to equipment over time.

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Concerns over water use, as well as rising energy bills, have stirred local opposition to a rash of datacenter projects, causing some developments to be curtailed or canceled. These concerns have become a political headache for Republicans – Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of the AI industry – with much of the opposition coming from rural, more conservative areas.

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