US Leads Data Center Growth as Water Stress and Security Risks Rise

TechRadar reported that Russia has built 77 data centers since 2023, a 44% increase, and the UK has expanded by 58, up 12%. The United States now has 5,427 data centers, while Russia’s total of 251 represents just under 5% of the U.S. figure. The source said the U.S. has 10 times more data centers than any other country.

The Comparitech study uses the World Resources Institute’s definition of water stress, which classifies a country as under water stress when it uses more than 80% of its available water supply. Comparitech scores low water stress at 1.0 and extremely high water stress at 4 to 5. Chile scored 4.5 and Belgium 4.4, the highest in the report, while the United States scored 2.6 and the UK 1.3. Belgium, described by TechRadar as famously damp and temperate, has established 12 new facilities since 2023, a figure that suggests it has gone as far as it can while data centers demand up to five million gallons of water a day.

The TechRadar report also points to the security consequences of concentrating data center capacity. In March 2026, Iran launched Shahed drone strikes on AWS sites in the United Arab Emirates. The report cited damage to AWS facilities in the UAE and Bahrain during the 2026 U.S.-Iran conflict, as well as Russian attacks on a data center in Kyiv, as evidence that data centers are increasingly treated as strategic assets rather than only commercial ones.

Comparitech said clustering brings efficiency advantages for power and connectivity but also concentrates risk through strained local resources, single points of failure and more attractive targets as facilities become more central to national economies and AI infrastructure. The report also noted that the positioning of data centers relative to one another, residential areas and other industries could determine how future conflicts unfold. TechRadar said that as data centers continue to cluster into denser digital hubs, the risk will continue to grow.