US golf courses use 30.5x more water than all data centers combined

MaxUnfried · x · 2026-09-06

A striking counterpoint to the "AI data centers waste water" narrative: American golf courses consume roughly 531 billion gallons of water per year, while all US data centers combined use only about 17.4 billion gallons — a 30.5x gap.

The post quips "Defund golf courses," a stat often cited in debates over the environmental cost of AI compute.

Related event: Data center water use is a fraction of golf courses, analyst says(3 posts)→

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