Northern Virginia’s “data center alley” is thirstier than ever

Data centers in Virginia, which hosts the world’s largest concentration of data infrastructure, are sucking up nearly two-thirds more water than they did in 2019 according to reporting by the Financial Times (FT).

Through freedom of information requests to six regional water authorities in or around Northern Virginia’s “data center alley,” the FT obtained data indicating that data centers operated by tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft used 1.85+ billion US gallons of water in 2023. That’s up from 1.13 in 2019, equaling a roughly 64% increase over four years, according to the news outlet.

The data is only a partial picture, as the FT was unable to obtain full data, or any data at all, from some Virginia water providers. To put the consumption in context, however, FT reported data from the Prince William County Service Authority, which recorded data centers as consuming about 6% of maximum-day demand this year.

Earlier this year, Synergy Research Group estimated that around 15% of global hyperscale capacity is based out of Northern Virginia, far surpassing other global hubs like Beijing, Dublin, or Silicon Valley. The hundreds of data centers in the region process an estimated 70% or so of global digital traffic, according to the Washington Post, additionally stressing regional electrical grids.

Environmental news site Grist noted the worst effects of recent droughts have overlapped with watersheds supplying data centers in Northern Virginia, and experts say the heat waves that have swept the US in recent years can make cooling data centers significantly harder. More frequent and severe droughts or heat waves are, of course, associated with climate change.

Julie Bolthouse, director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, told Grist the potential consequences on water supplies are unclear in large part due to reluctance from operators to disclose operational details of facilities.

“We just don’t know. And that’s the biggest problem: We need more transparency around this industry,” Bolthouse told Grist. “And yet we’re approving them because of the promise of increased revenue.”

Water is used in large quantities as coolant in climate control systems that keep server racks and components from overheating. However, survey data from data center certification organization Uptime Institute has indicated many operators aren’t tracking metrics like water consumption—partially because other metrics like electrical consumption tend to have a much larger impact on their bottom line, Andy Lawrence, Uptime Institute Intelligence’s executive director of research, previously told IT Brew.

Almost half of IT professionals anticipate that more more efficient cooling technologies, namely direct-to-chip cold plates and immersion cooling, will come into far more widespread use in coming years, according to a recent survey by the Register. However, that’s because cheaper methods like air cooling can’t keep up with the increasing density of server racks powering technologies like generative AI. Synergy projected last year that global hyperscale data center capacity will triple within six years—meaning uncertainty about sustainability is likely only to grow as well.

According to FT, Microsoft has reported that around 42% of its global water consumption came from “areas with water stress” in 2023, while Google reported it obtained 15% of its water from regions with “high water scarcity.” Amazon has not released its numbers, according to the report.

Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Arman Shehabi, NPR reported in 2022, showed around 20% of data centers already rely on watersheds of “moderate to high” stress. Shehabi recommended in his 2021 paper that operators take several measures, such as increasing energy efficiency, recovering waste heat, investing in renewables, and strategically locating new operations in cooler regions.