Two of the most water-intensive sectors in the United States — avocado agriculture and data center operations — consume water at surprisingly comparable scales, each in the range of 100–170 billion gallons per year.
Avocados are among the most water-demanding fruits in commercial production. It takes approximately 320 liters (~85 gallons) of water to grow a single avocado, or roughly 2,000 liters per kilogram (~240 gallons per pound). In the United States, avocados are grown primarily in California — a chronically water-scarce state — and the country imports the vast majority of its supply from Mexico, where water stress in growing regions is even more severe. A peer-reviewed study in EuroChoices (2020) identified avocado farming as a significant driver of water conflict and stress in producing zones, warning that climate change will intensify these pressures without urgent policy intervention.
Data centers consume water both directly — through evaporative cooling systems that keep servers from overheating — and indirectly, through the water demands of the power plants that supply their electricity. A 2021 study in npj Clean Water estimated that US data centers consume approximately 1.7 billion liters (~450 million gallons) of water per day, totaling roughly 160–170 billion gallons per year. In some facilities, up to 57% of that water comes from potable (drinking-quality) sources. A parallel 2021 study in Environmental Research Letters found that about one-fifth of US data center servers draw water directly from moderately to highly stressed watersheds. Transparency remains a major issue: fewer than one-third of data center operators measure their water use at all. With the rapid growth of AI infrastructure, annual data center water consumption in the US is forecast to approach 80 billion gallons per year by 2028 for AI-specific facilities alone.
On an annual basis, US data centers and the avocados consumed in the US use water at a roughly comparable scale — both in the range of 100–170 billion gallons per year — with data centers edging slightly higher. Both sectors draw disproportionately from already water-stressed regions, making geographic concentration as important as total volume.
