Water use for data centers across New Mexico could soar in the coming years, an analyst told state lawmakers Monday. Currently, data centers in the state use just more than 500 million gallons of water annually, accounting for one-half of 1% of the state’s total water use, Houston Advanced Research Center Vice President of Water and Community Resilience Margaret Cook told legislators on the interim Water and Natural Resources Committee. If every data center planned for the state was up and running, that figure would jump to 23.6 billion gallons per year, she said. The lion’s share of that water would go toward “indirect use,” such as cooling the power plants that fuel the data centers, Cook said. A lack of transparency from data center developers makes it difficult to accurately predict future water use numbers, she added.

Other data center water use news:

• The Arizona Republic (Phoenix): Attorney General Kris Mayes calls for halt to new Arizona data centers
• KPBS (San Diego): Judge preparing to halt massive Imperial County data center, order environmental review
• The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.): Big Tech’s data center boom is igniting a political revolt in the Bay Area