Data Centers water usage Hype – Generate 50x More Tax Revenue Per Gallon Than Golf Courses in Arizona
I’ve been digging into the numbers on Arizona’s water usage. What I found surprised me. Data centers get blamed for guzzling precious desert water. But the actual data tells a different story.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
In Maricopa County alone, golf courses use about 29 billion gallons of water annually. Data centers? Roughly 905 million gallons. That’s a 32:1 ratio. Golf courses use about 30 times more water than all data centers combined.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Data centers contributed $863 million in state and local taxes to Arizona in 2023. The golf industry generated $518 million in tax revenue in 2021. Data centers bring in more tax revenue while using a fraction of the water.
When you do the math on tax revenue per gallon of water, data centers generate roughly 50 times more value than golf courses. Fifty times.
The Thought Experiment
Here’s a wild thought experiment from researcher Andy Masley: What if Arizona replaced golf courses with data centers using the exact same amount of water?
At the rate data centers generate tax revenue per gallon, this swap would add roughly $42 billion in annual tax revenue. That’s almost double Arizona’s entire state tax revenue in 2023 ($28 billion).
I’m not saying we should bulldoze every golf course. Golf brings tourism and jobs. But this comparison exposes how lopsided the water debate has become.
Why Data Centers Get the Headlines
Data centers make easy targets. They’re big. They’re tech. They’re new. Meanwhile, golf courses have been watering the desert for decades without the same scrutiny.
Circle of Blue estimates data center water consumption in Arizona represents less than a tenth of one percent of the state’s annual water use. Agriculture uses about 70% of Arizona’s water. Golf courses use about 2%. Data centers? A rounding error.
The Bigger Picture
Data centers contributed $25.5 billion to Arizona’s GDP in 2023. They supported over 81,000 jobs. They’re investing in water-efficient cooling systems and recycled water infrastructure.
The industry isn’t ignoring the water problem. Companies are building closed-loop cooling systems. Some facilities use treated wastewater. Microsoft in Goodyear invested $40 million to expand wastewater capacity for the whole community.
This doesn’t mean data centers get a free pass. Water matters in the desert. But if we’re serious about water efficiency, we should focus on industries that actually use the most water per dollar of value created.
What This Means
The question isn’t whether data centers use water. Everything uses water. The question is: what’s the most productive use of limited water in a desert state?
By any reasonable metric, data centers deliver more economic value per gallon than almost any other industry. They’re not the villain in Arizona’s water story. They might actually be part of the solution.
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