Internal documents from 2025: Microsoft expects its annual water consumption to reach 28B liters by 2030, up from 7.9B liters in 2020 and 10.4B liters in 2024
Driven by the artificial intelligence frenzy, Microsoft is internally projecting that water use at its data centers will more than double …LinkedIn:Adam Satariano.Forums:r/technologyLinkedIn:Adam Satariano:We obtained an internal Microsoft forecast detailing the water required to cool its global data-center fleet. It showed rapidly rising water use as the company expands to meet A.I. demand. …Forums:r/technology:Microsoft Pledged to Save Water. In the A.I. Era, It Expects Water Use to Soar.
Priscilla Johnson, who was Microsoft's director of water strategy from 2017 until 2020 and has consulted for the company since then, siad when she presented ideas for more efficient water use, her manager “basically said, ‘How am I going to justify a more expensive data center?’”
“@Microsoft expects its annual water consumption to reach 28 billion liters by 2030.” While electricity is “destroyed” into computer processing and heat, water is not destroyed by data centers. It cools computers by absorbing their heat, and then is returned to nature.