AI data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia consumed 260 million gallons of potable water per day as of 2025, according to Loudoun Water, alongside another 200 million gallons of recycled water. The county hosts more than 250 data centers and has at least two dozen more in the pipeline, making its water math a leading indicator for the industry. Recycled water now covers 43% of daily data center water use in the county; drinking-water supplies still cover the other 57%.
The gap is why recycled water has quietly become one of the fastest-growing categories in industrial water treatment. A viral Liquid Death commercial featuring former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce joked that beer drinkers should donate urine to cool servers. The underlying idea — using non-potable water sources to offset drinking-water draw — is already the plan.
Michael Obradovitch, vice president of data center global accounts at Ecolab, said alternative water sources are already deployed at similar scale across the industry. Recycled water is produced by treating wastewater and sewage through membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet light until it is clean enough for industrial cooling loops, and in some cases clean enough to drink.
Key facts
- 01Loudoun County, Virginia hosts more than 250 data centers, with at least two dozen more planned.
- 02As of 2025, Loudoun data centers use 200 million gallons of recycled water and 260 million gallons of potable water per day.
- 03Recycled water covers 43% of daily data center water use in Loudoun; potable supplies still cover 57%.
- 04Meta has committed at least $270 million to wastewater infrastructure projects near its data centers.
- 05A Gallup poll finds about 7 in 10 Americans oppose data centers in their communities.
Raw urine, contrary to the ad's premise, would destroy a cooling tower. Bruno Pigott, executive director of the WateReuse Association and a former acting assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said urine carries salts, urea, bacteria, and organic matter that leave mineral deposits and would require constant cleaning. In evaporative cooling systems, which push hot air through water to shed heat, untreated urine would be a non-starter. The treatment step is the whole point.
Greta Zornes, practice leader for water reuse at engineering firm CDM Smith, has worked in the field for more than two decades. She said her daily work has shifted almost entirely toward data center projects as demand accelerates.
The bottleneck is infrastructure. A data center can only tap recycled water if there is a wastewater treatment plant nearby that processes enough volume, Zornes said. Rural sites — where much of the new build is landing because of cheaper power and land — often lack treatment plants sized for hyperscale draw. Building that capacity takes years, and the timelines are what slow the pivot away from potable water.
Meta has moved to underwrite some of that buildout. The company has committed at least $270 million to wastewater infrastructure projects near its data centers, even as its Reality Labs division continues to lose roughly $4 billion per quarter. Obradovitch argued data centers can function as anchor investors in municipal water infrastructure, with several operators already committing capital to help local utilities scale.
On the policy side, Pigott is pushing for a 30% federal tax credit to accelerate recycled-water infrastructure across industries. The Loudoun ratio — 43% recycled today — is a ceiling that only moves up if treatment capacity grows faster than data center construction.
“We think it would greatly accelerate the pace with which data centers and other industries entered into this area.”— Bruno Pigott, Executive Director, WateReuse Association
Public sentiment is the other constraint. A recent Gallup poll found roughly seven in ten Americans oppose data centers being built in their communities, a number that will keep pressure on siting decisions and water permits. Pigott framed the Liquid Death campaign, however crude, as a chance to educate the public on what recycled-water systems actually do.
The AI Chat Daily read: water infrastructure is quietly becoming a gating factor on AI capacity in a way that mirrors the power-grid story from 2024. Hyperscalers can raise capex; they cannot conjure a wastewater treatment plant in a rural county overnight. Expect more Meta-style utility co-investments, more state-level tax-credit fights, and more site-selection decisions driven by proximity to a big-enough sewage plant. The companies that lock in recycled-water contracts early will have a cost and permitting advantage over the ones still buying potable water by the million gallons.
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