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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Technology
Luke Barratt and Rosa Furneaux

Amazon strategised about keeping its datacentres’ full water use secret, leaked document shows

a collage of squares and an aerial view of a datacentre
An Amazon Web Services datacentre in Ashburn, Virginia, on 20 October 2025. Illustration: Guardian Design/Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

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.

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