Amazon disclosed that its global data centers withdrew about 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025, releasing the figure in a sustainability blog post that led with efficiency gains rather than the total itself. Amazon stressed that its centers use free air cooling about 90% of the time and just 0.12 liters per kilowatt-hour, which it called 7x better than the industry average, and that it is 75% of the way to a 2030 goal of returning more water than it consumes, though it still returns only three gallons for every four it uses. The Wall Street Journal's coverage led instead with the 2.5 billion gallon figure, framing it around mounting scrutiny of AI's environmental toll, the number Amazon placed deep in its post and cushioned by noting that U.S. lawn watering uses more than 1,300 times as much.
