The claim that data centers are a large drain on the nation's water does not hold up. Its just false.
In 2024, large U.S. data centers consumed an estimated 19–23 billion gallons on site (Han et al., 2026). For scale, that’s about 4% of the 532 billion gallons U.S. golf courses applied for irrigation that same year (GCSAA, 2025).
The golf figure includes recycled water, and the data-center figure covers on-site consumption only.
There are so many false statements about data centers that, given better knowledge, must be labeled as lies.