A version of this article was part of the 2026 Northern Virginia Technology Council Report, The Impact of Data Centers on Virginia’s State and Local Economies, prepared by Mangum Economics.
Data centers are often portrayed as using excessive amounts of water. In truth, they use no more water than a typical large office building.
Nationwide, data centers use less than two-tenths of one percent of total water withdrawals in the United States. Data centers in Virginia, the state with by far the largest volume of data centers, accounted for one half of one percent of total water withdrawals, or fewer than five gallons out of every 1,000 gallons used statewide. In Phoenix, Arizona, another of the nation’s largest data center markets, data centers account for approximately one gallon out of every 1,000 gallons of water used.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) estimates that all US data centers used approximately 628 million gallons of water per day in 2023. For comparison, Americans used about 322 billion gallons of water per day, according to the most recent comprehensive national data from 2015. Because the US population has grown by nearly eight percent since then, current nationwide water use is likely even higher.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Zorn advises businesses, trade associations, and governments on the community impacts of critical infrastructure. Previously, he spent over 20 years at the US Food and Drug Administration working on food safety, nutrition, risk assessment, and public health, ultimately serving as Director of Social Sciences. He has published papers on food safety, risk assessment, and data quality.
He earned a PhD in Economics from George Mason University.
