Google Releases Water Guidelines but Replenished Only 64% of 7.2 Billion Gallons It Consumed in 2024

Google on Wednesday released a set of water-management guidelines it says should become the industry standard for data centers. The framework calls for returning more water to local watersheds than its data centers consume by 2030, avoiding water-intensive cooling in more water-stressed regions, helping fund local water infrastructure upgrades, pursuing alternatives such as reclaimed wastewater, and disclosing water use annually.

5 billion gallons, or roughly 64 percent of its consumption.

Bikash Koley, vice president of global infrastructure at Google, said many data-center developers are not managing water responsibly and that a lack of information breeds distrust. Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have announced goals to better manage their water consumption at data-center operations over the past several years.

Google is positioning its guidelines as a framework the broader industry should adopt.

Data centers require cooling because chips running AI generate enormous heat. For the hottest AI chips, companies are increasingly using liquid cooling that moves heat through sealed pipes. Google says its closed-loop systems use very little water because it is continuously recirculated.

The main tradeoff is between water and power. Air cooling consumes on average 10 percent more energy than evaporative cooling and roughly twice as much on a hot day, Koley said. "It becomes a tradeoff between reducing stress on the grid versus reducing stress on the watershed," he said.

Roughly two-thirds of Google's data centers use evaporative cooling. The remaining third is a combination of air-cooled systems or those using recycled, non-conventional water resources, said Ben Townsend, head of infrastructure and sustainability at Google.

Google argues evaporative cooling can be the better environmental choice in places where water supplies are not under stress because it reduces electricity demand.

The company pointed to a new data center in India using air-cooling technologies and the American Southwest generally as examples where local water supplies led it to choose less-water-intensive methods. Google executives declined to predict the company's future water use, saying local conditions heavily influence cooling choices. The share of its data centers using air cooling is rising.

Its 2025 water-use numbers will be released in a few weeks.