They, like your home computer, need to be cooled, which in the case of data centers often relies on water. Recently, however, data center expansion across the country has collided with concerns about drought and stressed water supplies.
On Wednesday, Google announced five new commitments to water stewardship as well as $17 million in support of new projects in Nebraska, Iowa and five other states intended to protect local water resources in the areas where it operates. The company also hopes the initiative will motivate other data center operators to take similar steps.
"We do know that water is a plentiful resource in some areas and it's also very scarce in some areas," said Ben Townsend, Google’s global head of infrastructure and sustainability. "Because of this, we know we have to prioritize responsible water use management to take care of the communities we call home."
In Nebraska, the company will award the Metropolitan Utilities District $3 million to enhance its leak detection program, he said. The funding will support the installation of acoustic leak detection sensors across 500 miles of high-priority water lines, which will help the utility more quickly identify, locate and repair leaks.
MUD has seen an increase in water-main breaks in recent years and has stepped up efforts to replace aging pipes and to detect leaks before they happen. In addition to the utility's existing programs, the new sensors could prevent up to one billion gallons of water loss per year, MUD said. The estimate is based on industry metrics from the American Water Works Association.
In western Iowa, the company is working with the Great Outdoors Foundation and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to help farmers convert 5,000 acres into perennial hay and pasture systems, reducing fertilizer use and improving water quality.
Townsend said using water systems to cool data centers vs. relying on air cooling can reduce data center energy use by about 10% — and as much as 20% on the hottest days. Saving that energy helps reduce energy-related emissions and electrical grid constraints while also improving energy access and affordability in the communities where it operates.
However, he said, there are misconceptions about how much water data centers use. All U.S. data centers today use less than 1% of the water used on American lawns.
To reach that figure, Google tapped the 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WaterSense website, which puts residential outdoor water use at nearly 8 billion gallons a day, mostly for landscape irrigation.
Still, the company's water consumption isn't a drop in the bucket. Worldwide, Google's data centers withdrew nearly 9.9 billion gallons of water in 2024 and consumed 7.9 billion gallons, according to the company's 2025 environmental report. The rest is discharged back into the watershed.
Locally, the company's Papillion data center withdrew 532 million gallons and consumed 416.9 million gallons in 2024, the equivalent of 2.8 golf courses, according to the report. Its Council Bluffs data center withdrew 1.4 billion gallons and consumed a little more than 1 billion gallons, the equivalent of 6.7 golf courses.
Townsend said the company is cementing its multi-dimensional approach to responsible water use with five formal commitments, several of which already are in use.
The company first is committed to replenishing more water than it consumes at its sites by 2030, he said. Just as people can bolster their health by taking vitamins and exercising, investments in watersheds such as aquifer storage, wetland restoration and smart irrigation can improve the health of watersheds.
The company currently has 165 water stewardship projects across 97 watersheds, with more to come. Once they're fully implemented, he said, the projects are expected to replenish more than 19 billion gallons of water by 2030, more than double the company's consumption in 2024. According to the company, that's enough water to supply the entire city of Los Angeles for more than 40 days.
The grant to MUD falls under the company's second commitment to help modernize water and wastewater infrastructure. In addition to paying for the water it uses, Google already has committed more than $500 million to such infrastructure projects.
The company also pledges to use air cooling or recycled water in less healthy, at-risk watersheds, he said. To determine the health of watersheds, the company will perform detailed hydrologic assessments with state water officials before it begins to design or develop a data center.
Google, he said, was the first major cloud provider to disclose annual water use for each of its data centers. To ensure transparency, the company pledges to continue to report such data.
Under Legislative Bill 1010, which the Nebraska Legislature adopted this spring, owners and operators of data centers will be required to submit a report to the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment and the legislature's Natural Resources Committee by Sept. 30 each year providing data on annual water use, annual electric demand and other information.
Google, Townsend said, also is committed to pursuing alternatives to fresh water, including reclaimed water sources, at its data centers in order to protect water resources. An example is its data center in Douglas County, Georgia, which currently uses reclaimed wastewater to help with the cooling process.
"We do hope that cementing all of this in a formal way ... can inspire other others to responsibly manage water through example," he said of the company's commitments.
© 2026 Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
