The Middle East and North Africa region is racing to become a global hub for artificial intelligence while running short of the resource that AI infrastructure depends on most: water.
As Saudi Arabia and its neighbors expand their digital infrastructure, the region’s AI ambitions are no longer in question. The infrastructure is coming. The real question is whether MENA plans for its water demands now or absorbs the strain later.
That demand is easy to underestimate. A recent UN University report projects that by 2030, the water footprint of the world’s data centers could equal the basic annual domestic water needs of 1.3 billion people. In MENA, average per capita water availability is expected to fall below the absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person a year by 2030, according to the World Bank.
For Saudi Arabia and the wider region, AI’s water demand is therefore not an abstract concern. It is a strategic planning challenge.
Water systems across MENA were built to serve existing users, not industrial demand arriving at this scale and speed. If supply cannot expand quickly enough, the shortfall does not disappear. It becomes competition, with data centers, farms, households and ecosystems drawing harder on the same stretched resources.
The answer is not to slow digital growth, but to design it differently. One opportunity lies in wastewater. Around 82 per cent of the region’s wastewater is never collected or treated. Reusing more of it would create a source that can grow with population rather than shrink with scarcity. Across MENA, including Saudi Arabia, IWMI is working with the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture to use AI to identify opportunities for expanding treated-water reuse and better target investment.
Two complementary solutions are already emerging: one on the supply side and one on the demand side.
On the supply side, Qatar and several other GCC countries have shown that major cooling systems can run on non-potable water, including treated wastewater, rather than drawing on drinking-quality supplies. New AI data centers across MENA could adopt the same principle from the outset, with treatment systems and non-potable water networks built into their design.
On the demand side, several Gulf operators are testing liquid and other high-efficiency cooling technologies that can reduce water use for cooling by as much as 90 per cent. These systems are not yet widespread, but they show that new AI infrastructure does not have to inherit the water demands of conventional data centers.
Water availability should also shape where facilities are built. Alongside power, connectivity and land, site selection must take account of local water stress, the resilience of the surrounding basin and the needs of other users. In a country as water-scarce as Saudi Arabia, that consideration cannot be left until after construction decisions have been made.
Good planning should also consider how water is returned to local systems, not simply how it is consumed. Investments in treated-water reuse, managed aquifer recharge, watershed restoration and reducing losses from local networks can help return water benefits to the same basin from which a facility draws. These measures should complement, not replace, efficient cooling, responsible water use and careful siting.
Better data will be essential. Water accounting and disclosure can help governments see where water is available, where it is being depleted and how new demand will affect local systems. That evidence can guide decisions on siting, design and allocation, while helping communities understand how competing needs are being balanced.
The region is left with a central paradox. AI infrastructure creates new water demand, yet AI can also help map wastewater potential, monitor scarce resources and improve water decisions.
The challenge is to ensure that the water AI helps save ultimately outweighs the water its infrastructure consumes. Whether that happens will depend less on the technology itself than on the planning decisions being made today.
Inga Jacobs-Mata is strategic program director of water, growth and inclusion and Youssef Brouziyne is regional representative for MENA at the International Water Management Institute.
