Amazon's data centers consumed 2.5 billion gallons of water last year, the company said.
At the facilities the company owns and operates directly, the total amount of water Amazon withdrew decreased two percent from 2024 to 2025, despite the number of data centers increasing. The company did not disclose any change in water usage at the sites it leases.
Amazon Web Services owned some 28.37 million sq ft (2.64m sqm) of data center and office space in 2025 and leased another 28.469m sq ft (2.64m sqm), a previous 10-K filing revealed.
In a blog post, the world's largest cloud company claimed that its global data center operations used 0.12 liters of water per kilowatt-hour (L/kWh) in 2025, which it claimed was seven times more efficient than the industry average of 0.84 L/kWh.
The company shared a graphic comparing it to rival hyperscalers, but the per kilowatt-hour chart compared all of its data centers against the more power-intensive AI-specific facilities of Google.
Amazon did not include indirect water usage at the power plants providing electricity, nor other water impacts, including construction.
The data centers use free air cooling for around 90 percent of the time, Amazon said. While Google and Meta provide water usage data for individual facilities, Amazon did not disclose site-specific information.
2.5bn gallons of water is significantly smaller than many other industries – California's almond orchards consume between 1.3 and 1.6 trillion gallons of water annually, while the US livestock and beef industry withdraws approximately 4.5tn gallons of water annually. However, much of the data center industry uses potable water.
Amazon operates 26 facilities using 100 percent reclaimed water, with 130 more contracted globally. The company did not share the percentage of the total 2.5bn that came from reclaimed sources.
Amazon reiterated its goal to be water positive by 2030, and said that it was about 75 percent of the way there.
The disclosure comes amid a growing anti-data center movement, where AI water usage has become a key concern – albeit, with many sharing inflated and unrealistic representations of data center water consumption.
June 16, 2026, 9:57 a.m. - Steve Bowes-Phipps
"the world's largest cloud company claimed that its global data center operations used 0.12 liters of water per kilowatt-hour (L/kWh) in 2025, which it claimed was seven times more efficient than the industry average of 0.84 L/kWh.". If ever there was a misuse of statistics, there it is! For one thing, no-one knows what "the industry average" is...most DCs keep these numbers confidential. What I think I can say with some certainty though, is that in Europe, the average will be a lot lower than AWS's global figure, because most installed capacity uses closed-loop water systems and water harvesting is also used in places. I would love to see the hyperscalers and colocation industry fall over themselves to publish their own figures, but I think I could be waiting a long time...