Amazon strategised about keeping the public in the dark over the true extent of its datacentres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals.
The biggest owner of datacentres in the world, Amazon dwarfs competitors Microsoft and Google and is planning a huge increase in capacity as part of a push into artificial intelligence. The Seattle firm operates hundreds of active facilities, with many more in development despite concerns over how much water is being used to cool their vast arrays of circuitry.
Amazon as a whole consumed 105bn gallons of water in total in 2021, as much as 958,000 US households, which would make for a city bigger than San Francisco, according to the memo.
Asked about the leaked document, Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan described it as “obsolete” and said it “completely misrepresents Amazon’s current water usage strategy”.
Interesting that they don’t say in which direction it misrepresents (is it saying it is too high or too low). Maybe they are hoping the reader will infer from what they are saying that they’re using less now, without them having to say that.