The Trinity River Watershed, located in parts of the LBJ National Grasslands, is a critical water source for Texans living downstream.
Jelly Cocanougher/National Forest Foundation
Google on Wednesday announced its intentions to invest $10 million into Texas water as part of its broader commitment to manage water resources in the communities where it builds and operates data centers.
The company said its Water Impact Fund would support water stewardship and restoration in the state, including protecting already existing water sources and developing or improving infrastructure.
“Our goal is to minimize our local impacts so that our growth does not come at the expense of the communities we call home,” the company said in its announcement.
Article continues below this ad
The investment is part of Google’s larger announcement of $17 million for seven new projects across the country. Other states receiving funding are Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Nebraska.
Water is critical to developing and operating data centers. As data centers generate heat from the servers and chips, companies will often rely on water to cut back on energy use needed for cooling.
Water cooling can reduce data center energy use by about 10% compared to air cooling, according to Google, which said the aggregate water consumption of U.S. data centers is less than 1% of the water that Americans use on their lawns annually.
Article continues below this ad
“The science is showing that water can just have this really, really remarkable ability to reduce the energy consumption of data centers, which helps to support grid constraints and energy affordability in the communities where we operate,” Ben Townsend, Google’s head of infrastructure strategy and sustainability told The Dallas Morning News in an interview. “But, we also know that water is a vital resource, and it is plentiful in some areas and very scarce in others, and because of this, we know that water has to be prioritized.”
Google’s new water stewardship commitments include replenishing more water than it consumes at its sites by 2030, helping to modernize water and wastewater infrastructure, protecting at-risk watersheds with air-cooled solutions, reporting its annual water use transparently and pursuing alternative and reclaimed solutions to protect water sources.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, second from right, speaks during a news conference to announce Google’s $40 billion investment in Texas at Google Data Center, Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in Midlothian, as U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, from left, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy at Google, listen.
Chitose Suzuki/Staff Photographer
“Our goal is to deliver on these commitments, while creating a blueprint for responsible water use across the industry,” Townsend said.
The water fund comes months after the company tapped Texas for a $40 billion investment in artificial intelligence across the state, including the development of three new data centers. The latter funding runs through 2027 and is focused on Google Cloud, AI and energy infrastructure, as well as programs to strengthen energy capacity and affordability and workforce training.
Article continues below this ad
Google has 165 water stewardship initiatives across 97 watersheds globally and already committed more than $500 million to the development of water, wastewater, and water reuse infrastructure and to the utility partners that deliver water in the communities where we operate and build data centers, according to the company.
Related: Dallas-Fort Worth is a leading data center market with a ‘significant scale issue’
“This impact fund will complement our ongoing water stewardship and replenishment work, and further our promise to responsibly manage vital water resources where we build and operate data centers, while ensuring our growth never comes at the expense of local households,” the announcement read.
How companies approach water use is important, Townsend said.
“It can be done well so that everybody is protected and everybody wins, and we have a bright water future,” Townsend said. “There is so much activity out there right now with people who are moving really fast, who may just be forgetting how important this is. … We can all afford to just slow down a little bit and look at what the best practices are, so that we collectively have a bright water future, and if we’re successful in that, and we can make sure that the AI water challenges don’t actually become a problem, we’ve all won.”
Article continues below this ad
Google has two data center campuses in Ellis County — one in Midlothian and another in Red Oak — and plans for expansions into Armstrong, Haskell and Wilbarger counties.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.