Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has claimed that the company's newest generation of AI data centers uses so little water that its annual consumption is roughly equivalent to that of a single restaurant. Speaking at Microsoft Build 2026 on June 2, Nadella made the claim while outlining Microsoft's "Community-First AI Infrastructure" strategy aimed to address growing concerns about the impact of data centers on local communities.
"The cooling loop is filled once, and the data center can operate effectively with zero water consumption," Nadella said during his keynote, while describing how new architectures are redefining data center water consumption. "The daily water usage over the course of an entire year is roughly equivalent to what a single restaurant would use."
