Amazon’s 2025 data-centre water use puts AI infrastructure under climate scrutiny
Amazon disclosing that its data centres used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025 highlights the climate and resource pressure behind AI infrastructure growth.
AI infrastructure does not just need chips and electricity. It also needs water, and Amazon’s latest disclosure puts a very real resource number behind the data-centre boom.
What happened
Amazon disclosed that its data centres used 2.5 billion gallons of water globally in 2025 (~3,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools). The company also reported a water usage efficiency figure of 0.12 litres per kilowatt-hour, while saying its facilities became slightly more water-efficient year over year.
Why it matters
Data centres use water mainly to cool servers and keep systems running reliably. As cloud computing and AI workloads grow, water use is becoming part of the infrastructure debate alongside energy demand, emissions and grid pressure.
The bigger picture
The AI boom is increasingly a climate-tech and infrastructure story. Companies building large-scale compute will face more questions about where their power comes from, how much water they use and whether growth can be managed responsibly.