Study warns of water stress from new mega data centers in Germany

A Öko-Institut study commissioned by Greenpeace finds German data centers used about 13 billion liters of water for cooling in 2025, and could reach up to 27 billion liters a year by 2030 as new mega facilities are built. Bitkom, the industry association, had called water demand largely unproblematic, while the study's authors say direct water use can be cut to zero with dry or compression cooling. Greenpeace also criticizes poor transparency, noting that fewer than half of the roughly 1,200 reporting operators supplied data to authorities.