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Water Scarcity Halts Google Chile, Pressures Microsoft

6/4/2026

Summary

Google Pauses Chile

Google paused its $200-million data centre in Chile after a court reversed the 2020 permit over aquifer impact.
Microsoft secured 25 million litres of water annually from Querétaro’s aquifer, which faces a 60-million-litre deficit amid the state’s drought.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects data centres could use up to 33 billion gallons of water by 2030, finding echoed by a Gallup poll showing seven-in-ten Americans oppose data-center development because of water scarcity.

Summary

AI Water Demand

Corporate reports list only direct cooling water, omitting indirect electricity-generation water that Lawrence Berkeley says is twelve times larger.
Li and Ren estimate AI will withdraw 4.2–6.6 billion cubic metres of water by 2027, matching four Denmarks at the low end and half the United Kingdom at the high end.
Google’s water use rose 8 percent to 8.1 billion gallons in 2024 while Microsoft’s West Des Moines AI cluster draws 68.5 million gallons annually.

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Google Pauses Chile

Google paused its $200-million data centre in Chile after a court reversed the 2020 permit over aquifer impact.
Microsoft secured 25 million litres of water annually from Querétaro’s aquifer, which faces a 60-million-litre deficit amid the state’s drought.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects data centres could use up to 33 billion gallons of water by 2030, finding echoed by a Gallup poll showing seven-in-ten Americans oppose data-center development because of water scarcity.

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