this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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AI Data Centers’ Water Consumption Breaks 264 Billion Gallons in 2025 as Devastating Drought Hits Nearly 63% of U.S. (www.barchart.com)
submitted 17 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] kromem@lemmy.world -1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

Since it's useful to see large numbers normalized, this is a little less than how much water all US households used in ten days in 2025 (28 billion/day per comment below) and a little under three days of the total water used for US crop irrigation (100 billion per day).

Edit: updated household numbers per comment below

[–] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 17 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Each American uses an average of 82 gallons of water a day at home (USGS, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2015).

estimated population was 341,784,857 on July 1, 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That's 28 billion gallons per day from US households. Your 300 billion number would mean each person in the US is somehow using almost 1,000 gallons of water per day.

[–] kromem@lemmy.world 0 points 5 hours ago

Thanks! Updated the numbers for the direct household use.

Also, technically when you account for indirect water use, individuals use closer to around 4,500 gallons per day (Chini, et al. Direct and indirect urban water footprints of the United States (2016)).