President Trump’s billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on Squawk Box Wednesday to report on what’s being discussed at the G20 Financial Summit in Asheville, North Carolina, hosted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Lutnick addressed the rapid buildout of AI data centers, whose large-scale development has drawn opposition in communities across the U.S.
Lutnick said: “You know, one of my favorite things is when people talk about data centers using water. The number one product in America that uses water is cattle.”
He laughed and added, “Cattle. I mean, data centers don’t use water.” He added, “This is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down.”
Several institutions and companies, including those that build data centers, say they do use significant amounts of water to keep servers cool, although some newer cooling systems can operate without consuming water for cooling.
According to the Brookings Institution, “A typical data center uses 300,000 gallons of water each day (equivalent to the demands of about 1,000 households), but large data centers can use an estimated 5 million gallons of water each day.”
Trump’s Commerce Secretary: Data centers don’t use water. This is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down. pic.twitter.com/F2nS5Hqp4S
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) September 2, 2026
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) says “data centers have a thirst for water” and concurs with Brookings: “Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.”
Microsoft says it designs its data centers “to use as little water as possible,” and when water is needed, “we work with local utilities to avoid straining community supplies—generally using less water than many other industries.”
According to its FY 2025 database, Microsoft datacenters consumed 8,170 MLs (megaliters) of water around the world. (That’s more than 2.1 billion gallons of water.)
[NOTE: Cattle also present substantial water requirements. Farm equipment supplier Ritchie Industries of Iowa reported in June that a 200-head herd of cattle demands approximately 3,600-4,000 gal/day in extreme heat (90ºF+).]