Here's something pretty remarkable.
Arizona uses about 7 million acre-feet of water each year.
@BluefieldWater estimates that last year, data centers used roughly 10,200 acre-feet statewide, representing 0.15% of Arizona's annual water use.
For every 1,000 gallons Arizona uses, roughly 1.5 gallons go to data centers.
@CeresNews analyzed 124 existing and planned data centers in the Phoenix region. Its report estimated both the direct water used for cooling and the indirect water used to generate electricity.
If all planned facilities identified in the report come online, their combined annual water demand would be about 56,000 acre-feet, including the water used to generate electricity.
That's about 0.8% of Arizona's annual water use.
Meanwhile, data centers generated more than $1 billion in state and local tax revenue in 2024, including about $607 million in state taxes.
That's almost $1.7 million for the state every day.
If this post represented Arizona's annual water use:
Today's data centers? About one letter.
The full Ceres scenario? About one word.