Data centers are the nerve centers of the digital world, powering our daily lives with Search, Maps, online banking, healthcare and 911 systems. As we grow our data center footprint to support these services, we recognize that how we build is just as important as what we build.
Water is a critical component of data center development and operations. Because data centers generate heat from the servers and chips that power the digital world, they often rely on water to cut back on energy use for cooling. In many places, water cooling can reduce data center energy use by approximately 10% compared to air cooling. The aggregate water consumption of data centers is small — U.S. data centers use less than 1% of the water that Americans use on their lawns annually
— but we are focused on protecting local water resources in all aspects of our data center operations.
Today, we are announcing several water stewardship commitments as a promise to responsibly manage vital water resources where we build and operate data centers. Our goal is to minimize our local impacts so that our growth does not come at the expense of the communities we call home. We’re also announcing new water stewardship initiatives and evaluating projects through Google’s water replenishment Request for Information (RFI).
New water stewardship commitments
Under these five commitments, Google will:
- Replenish more water than we consume at our sites
by 2030. By investing in replenishment projects, we can help improve water security for everyone. In 2025, we replenished more than 7 billion gallons (roughly equivalent to the annual water usage of 70,000 average U.S. households).
And, today, we have 165 water stewardship projects across 97 watersheds. Once these projects are fully implemented, they are expected to replenish more than 19 billion gallons
of water annually by 2030, more than double our 2024 consumption (enough water to supply the entire city of Los Angeles for more than 40 days). The majority of these projects not only deliver volumetric benefits, but also help improve broader watershed health challenges such as water quality.
- Help modernize water and wastewater infrastructure for our neighbors. Water utilities are often underfunded. By working with our utility partners, we are helping update public water infrastructure so that our neighbors have reliable, affordable water sources both today and in the future. In addition to paying for the water we use, to date Google has committed over $500 million to the development of water, wastewater and water reuse infrastructure and to the utility partners that deliver water in the communities where we operate/build data centers. This includes projects ranging from enhancing local water supplies to detecting leaky pipes. We’re committed to continuing to help local utilities update their infrastructure.
- Protect at-risk watersheds with air-cooled solutions. We use a data-driven framework to assess local watersheds for new data centers before we build, and only consider water cooling if local resources are healthy and resilient. If a water source is at high risk, we choose air cooling or recycled water. We will continue to work in partnership with state agencies and local utilities to follow these principles and ensure our approach reflects community needs.
- Report our annual water use transparently. Water use shouldn’t be a “black box.” Google was the first major cloud provider to disclose our annual water use for our data center locations, and we’re committed to continuing to do so to ensure transparency for the communities where we invest and build.
- Pursue alternative and reclaimed solutions to protect water resources. We are working with utility partners to identify freshwater alternatives at our data centers, such as reclaimed wastewater. A prime example is in Douglas County, Ga., where we partnered with the county’s water and sewer authority to reuse treated wastewater for cooling at our data center campus.
New water stewardship initiatives
Globally, we have 165 water stewardship projects across 97 watersheds. Today, we’re proud to announce $17 million in support of new projects to advance our water stewardship ambitions in the following seven states:
