Newsletter
AI uses water for cooling, but its footprint is far smaller than several traditional water-intensive industries in India. We’ve spent the last few years hearing about how much water AI uses.
Every ChatGPT prompt needs computing power. Computing power creates heat. Data centres need cooling. And some cooling systems use water.
All true.
But the way this gets discussed can make it sound like AI is somehow one of the biggest consumers of water on the planet. It isn’t. Look at some of the industries India has been running for decades.
A 2025 NCAER study estimated that Indian industries used around 20 billion cubic metres of water in 2022-23. Pulp and paper alone accounted for about 5 billion cubic metres, steel used 2.54 billion, textiles 1.92 billion and fertilisers another 0.96 billion.
And water isn't simply going into the final product. Paper mills use it throughout pulping, bleaching and washing. Textile factories need huge quantities for dyeing, washing and finishing. Steel plants use it for cooling, steam generation and other processes.
Thermal power is another major user. TERI describes thermal power plants as the largest water-consuming industrial sector in India, followed by pulp and paper, textiles and iron and steel.
Now compare that with data centres. CEEW estimates that India's entire data-centre industry used roughly 150 billion litres of water a year in 2025. That's about 0.15 billion cubic metres. And remember, that number covers all data centres, not just AI.
So the comparison is pretty striking. Some traditional industries consume several billion cubic metres of water, while the entire Indian data-centre industry is estimated at a fraction of that.
AI does have a growing water footprint. India's data-centre capacity has already climbed from around 375 MW in 2020 to more than 1,500 MW, and AI workloads are helping drive the expansion.
But even here, the technology is changing. Indian data centres are increasingly adopting direct-to-chip cooling, immersion cooling and closed-loop systems to reduce water consumption. Amazon says its new Thane data centre will use no water for cooling.
So yes, AI uses water.
But putting AI at the centre of the world's water consumption story leaves out the industries that have been using vastly more water for much longer.
