Google pledges to replenish more water than it uses at data centers by 2030

The company has expanded its water stewardship projects.

Lifted Fairing LLC/Shutterstock Google is expanding its water stewardship commitments, including investments in replenishment projects, to provide more water than it consumes at its data centers by 2030. The company now has 165 stewardship projects across 97 watersheds, which are expected to replenish 19 billion gallons a year by 2030. Google says that's more than double its consumption for 2024 and would allow the company to use more water over the coming years and still achieve its goal.

Based on general online sentiment, such as Erin Brockovich's recent crowdsourced AI data center map, people living near these data centers are mostly worried about how the facilities could affect their water supply. A mid-size data center uses around 300,000 gallons of water a day, which is equivalent to what 1,000 households use in the US. Google runs data centers for Search, YouTube, Drive cloud storage, Gmail and other services. And, yes, its data centers also power its increasing number of AI features and tools. The company, like many others, uses water to cool down servers, as it uses less energy than air cooling.