- AI data center growth has accelerated over the past 3 years, with the US alone building 127
- As a result of this push, the US has 10 times more data centers than any other country
- While environmental concerns over AI data centers are strong in the US, it is Chile and Belgium that have the highest water stress
The expansion of data centers over the past three years has revealed that while the US is leading the growth, the environmental impact is actually more widely felt, with water stress being felt in smaller nations, too.
Although the US has built an amazing 127 data centers since 2023 – which is 10 times more than any other country – Russia has built 77 (44% growth) and the UK has expanded by 58 (up 12%). But while the US has 5,427 data centers, Russia’s impact is tiny, with 251 representing just under 5% of the same output.
Water stress is largely impacted on areas where water is already in short supply, but a new study has shown that areas including the famously damp Belgium are impacted.
What is water stress?
Much of the opposition to data centers has concerned the environmental impact, particularly on water stress.
Comparitech’s study refers to the World Resources Institute’s definition of water stress, which tells us that a country using more than 80% of its entire available water supply is under water stress. This is scored in Comparitech’s report, with low water stress rated 1.0, and extremely high rated 4-5.
The results show that Chile (4.5) and Belgium (4.4) have the highest stress on the water supply, with the US on 2.6 and UK on 1.3. However, the damper, temperate zone of Belgium seems to be building itself into data center-shaped water stress problem.
The small European country established 12 new facilities since 2023, which suggests it has gone as far as it can while data centers are demanding up to five million gallons of water a day.
Strategic assets
While the research from Comparitech emphasizes the impact of AI data center growth on the water supply, it also highlights another key consequence of their existence. In March 2026, Iran launched Shahed drone strikes on AWS sites in the United Arab Emirates.
Data centers are now strategic targets, and their positioning in relation to each other (as well as residential areas and other industries) could determine how conflicts unfold in future. The report notes:
“This kind of clustering brings clear efficiency advantages for power and connectivity, but it also concentrates risk: strained local resources, single points of failure, and – as facilities become more central to national economies and AI infrastructure – more attractive targets.
The damage to AWS facilities in the UAE and Bahrain during the 2026 US/Iran conflict, as well as the Russian attacks on a data center in Kyiv, demonstrates how data centers are increasingly treated as strategic assets rather than just commercial ones.”
As data centers continue the trend of clustering into denser digital hubs, this is a risk that will continue to grow.
