Google Papillion data center, Papillion, Nebraska

Google's data center in Papillion, in Sarpy County, Nebraska, stands at 14706 Schram Road near Highway 50, on a site first known locally as Project Wizard. Google announced it as a $600 million project that would initially employ 30 people, and it was built in 2019, before Google's Omaha data center in 2022 and its Lincoln project announced in 2023.

The number that has changed fastest here is water. Google's Nebraska operations, covering all three of the company's sites at Papillion, Omaha and Lincoln and not broken out by campus, used 46.6 million gallons in 2022, 134.7 million in 2023, and 732.1 million in 2025. For comparison, Meta's four million square foot campus nearby withdrew between 26.7 and 37.5 million gallons a year from 2020 to 2024. Google says it uses evaporative cooling or closed loop air cooled chillers depending on how much water is available in a place.

Large parts of Nebraska are in extreme drought. John Winkler, general manager of the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District, put it plainly: "From a logical, common-sense perspective, we really need to stop putting industry in areas where they can't be supported by natural resources like water."

Anthony Schutz, a law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said that set against the water Nebraska pours on its fields, the data centers' draw "remains a small amount relative to that." Pete Marin, who runs T5 Data Centers, said most of the industry is "doing the right thing," though he allowed there is a share of bad actors.

Until recently nobody had to say how much they used. A law passed in the Nebraska legislature's 2026 session requires data center developments to report annual water use and energy demand to the state Department of Water, Energy and Environment, starting later in 2026. The department's director, Jesse Bradley, said the state has a planning process in every area of Nebraska aimed at protecting all existing water users.