ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV

Next month, the seven Colorado River Basin states — Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming — are set to finalize a new framework for sharing a shrinking resource. Billed as a modern compact for a hotter, drier century, it will shape how the West survives in an age of scarcity. Yet amid debates over drought, equity, and cutbacks, one rapidly expanding demand remains almost invisible: the immense water consumption of artificial intelligence and the data centers that sustain it.

Across the Basin, massive server farms are rising on desert outskirts and industrial parks — from Goodyear and Mesa to Las Vegas and northern Utah. These facilities form the digital backbone of the AI era, training vast models and storing the world’s data. But their environmental cost is steep. A single data center can consume millions of gallons of water per day for cooling — drawn from the same aquifers, canals, and river-fed systems that sustain farms, families, and wildlife.

The original 1922 Colorado River Compact was written for an agricultural and industrial age, not for digital infrastructure that didn’t exist. Today, AI is expanding faster than any other industry in the Basin. If left unchecked, its growing water footprint threatens to worsen an already over-allocated system, particularly in the Lower Basin states — Arizona, California, and Nevada — which already face mandatory cuts.

Arizona sits at the epicenter of this emerging conflict. Long marketed as both a technology hub and a leader in desert water management, the state now faces a contradiction of its own making. While the Department of Water Resources and Central Arizona Project fight to secure every acre-foot of supply, new data centers in Maricopa County quietly add year-round demand to a system that cannot meet even current needs. In a state where communities like Rio Verde Foothills have already lost their water deliveries, every new data farm raises a moral and hydrological question: Who deserves priority when supply runs out?

To avoid complete collapse, the Basin states must embrace aggressive, basin-wide conservation on a scale comparable to what southern Nevada has achieved. Las Vegas has shown that mandatory turf removal, strict reuse standards, and tiered pricing can cut consumption dramatically. Similar policies — banning ornamental grass, incentivizing xeriscaping, restricting water-intensive crops like alfalfa, and rewarding agricultural conversion to less thirsty uses — should be implemented across the region. Every drop saved must be treated as a drop returned to the river. This isn’t austerity; it’s survival.

The credibility of this new compact rests on fairness. Households, farmers, and tribes are being asked to conserve and adapt to climate realities. If the tech sector is allowed unrestricted consumption while others sacrifice, it will erode both public trust and the moral foundation of the agreement.