Mary Zhang

Surging demand for data consumption and storage is driving rapid expansion in data centers across the United States. These US data centers are strategically located in areas offering abundant electricity to meet their intense power demands, significant amounts of water for cooling, access to fiber optic connectivity, affordable real estate, tax incentives, and are typically situated away from regions prone to natural disasters.

Data centers are significant consumers of natural resources, and while carbon emissions and electricity consumption often capture most attention, water usage is also gaining increased recognition. Water is essential in data center cooling systems to control the heat produced by these massive facilities, ensuring their internal servers run uninterrupted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Globally, the top 250 data center companies comprise a mix of cloud service providers (CSPs), retail colocation firms, and wholesale data center operators. These data center providers and operators deliver power and cooling infrastructure in highly specialized buildings that house computer servers and network equipment.