Amazon Web Services just put a number on something the tech industry has been quietly dancing around for years: how much water its data centers actually consume. The answer is approximately 2.5 billion gallons in 2025, the first time the company has disclosed an absolute annual figure for water withdrawals.
The numbers behind the number
AWS reported a water usage effectiveness (WUE) of 0.12 liters per kilowatt-hour. That metric has improved by 52% since 2021, and the company claims it’s roughly seven times better than the industry average of 0.84 L/kWh.
AWS actually managed to reduce water withdrawals at its directly owned and operated facilities by 2% compared to the prior year. That happened despite the company expanding capacity during a period when every major cloud provider has been building data centers at a pace that would make a suburban developer blush.
The efficiency gains are largely attributed to a shift toward air cooling methods. Server cooling remains the primary reason these facilities need water in the first place, and AWS says about two-thirds of the water it withdraws gets returned through various community infrastructure projects.
