Nadella on datacenter water use: closed-loop cooling equals one restaurant's yearly usage
pbaylies · x · 2026-11-08
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pushed back on the AI datacenter "water usage" debate, saying datacenters run on closed-loop cooling and use roughly as much water per year as one restaurant.
An accompanying infographic details the math: all US datacenters use 1.74 billion gallons/year for direct cooling (2.28 billion including electricity generation), while California's almond crop alone uses 1.53-1.79 trillion gallons/year — about 90x more than all US datacenters' direct use.
The claim and data offer a counterpoint to the "AI is draining water" narrative, though local impacts in water-stressed regions remain a fair concern.
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