Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas

Amazon’s three proposed new datacentres in the Aragon region of northern Spain are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, roughly enough to irrigate 233 hectares (576 acres) of corn, one of the region’s main crops. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and are building many more, the non-profit investigatory organisation SourceMaterial and the Guardian have found.

With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology giants are planning hundreds of datacentres in the US and across the globe, with a potentially huge impact on populations already living with water scarcity.