How the AI revolution could impact electricity and water bills
The largest technology companies in the United States are expected to spend more than $700 billion by the end of 2026 on computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence, nearly double the amount spent the previous year. Leading firms, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle, are known as "hyperscalers."
The largest technology companies in the United States are expected to spend more than $700 billion by the end of 2026 on computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence, nearly double the amount spent the previous year. Leading firms, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle, are known as "hyperscalers." These companies operate computing at a massive scale and manage global fleets of giant data centers containing millions of servers. They rent out this computing power to clients or use it to run their well-known services.
Who controls the global computing market?
The three largest cloud platforms—Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—together held 63% of the global market in the second quarter of 2026. Amazon leads with a market share of about 28%, Microsoft is second with approximately 20%, and Google is third with about 15%. Other companies, such as Meta, are building massive infrastructure exclusively for their own use, while Oracle is growing rapidly and providing computing power for training artificial intelligence models. This race requires massive capital that only a few companies can afford.
However, this rapid growth is beginning to weigh on the physical world. Giant data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and water to cool their systems. Today, the primary obstacle facing companies is not a shortage of chips, but long wait times for connection to the power grid and for the delivery of transformers. Furthermore, a single data center can consume millions of gallons of water per day, most of which evaporates and does not return to the local supply, creating growing tension with the communities where these centers are built.
Residents in the United States are taking up the fight
The most prominent example of this tension occurred in the city of The Dalles in Oregon, USA. Google's data centers in the city consumed about 355 million gallons of water in 2021, an amount accounting for nearly a third of the entire city's total water consumption. This figure was kept secret by Google and city officials, and was only revealed after a local press network forced the city to disclose the information through a legal battle.
Following these cases, local residents began to fight against construction plans. In 2025, the Tucson City Council in Arizona rejected a massive Amazon project following protests by residents over expected water and electricity consumption. These struggles make it clear that the location of computing centers and their resource consumption are no longer just business decisions for tech giants, but subjects for intense public negotiation—could this happen in Israel?
