Nevada's most precious element is being bought by data centers.

The governor backed a data center boom days after a million dollar donation. In the driest state in the country, the buildout's thirst is measured in households.

Aug 26, 2026 · Environment

Nevada is the driest state in the country. Nearly forty percent of its groundwater wells are in decline, and about seventy data centers are now operating, under construction or planned inside its borders.

That is the setup. Here is the money.

In May, Jessica Roy gave one million dollars to Governor Joe Lombardo's reelection committee. She is the wife of Rob Roy, who founded Switch, the Las Vegas data center company. The same month, Ben and Felicia Horowitz gave five hundred thousand dollars each. Ben Horowitz is a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, the venture firm that has put more money into artificial intelligence than almost anyone. Across the year the committee has taken about two million dollars from the AI and data center industry, according to the Nevada Current's review of the filings.

The Lever reports that Lombardo endorsed the buildout three days after the first of those gifts arrived. That timeline is The Lever's reconstruction, and no other outlet has matched it.

Now the water.

Most of the buildout sits in Storey County, on a patch of desert about fifteen miles east of Reno called the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. The Desert Research Institute modelled what it will drink when it is finished. In the institute's medium cooling scenario the buildout uses about as much water in a year as sixty-three thousand three hundred Nevada households. In the high scenario it is one hundred and forty-two thousand six hundred. Read the second number slowly, because Reno itself has roughly one hundred thousand households.

The institute's own tables put the medium scenario at about one hundred and seventy-four percent of the water every other industrial user in Nevada uses put together. Not more than any one of them. More than all of them.

There is a second bill, and it is the one that shows up in public budgets.

Nevada has awarded about three hundred and forty million dollars in tax abatements to data center projects since 2021, by 8 News Now's count. The annual figure grew from ninety-seven million in 2021 and 2022 to two hundred and forty million in 2023 and 2024. Lombardo has said the abatement process carries public reporting and clawbacks if a company does not deliver what it promised. His opponent, Attorney General Aaron Ford, has said he would pause new abatements if he is elected.

Here is the part that is easy to miss from inside Nevada.

The rest of the country is saying no. Data Center Watch counted at least seventy-five data center projects worth about one hundred and thirty billion dollars blocked or delayed in the first three months of 2026 alone. Organised opposition groups are now active in forty-nine states, more than double the number in late 2025, and more than three hundred state bills on data centers were filed in the first six weeks of the year.

Every one of those choices made clean sense from inside the moment it was made. A state with cheap land and no income tax courts the industry that has money. An industry that needs power and space goes where both are cheap. A campaign takes the checks that are offered to it.

What the reporting establishes is the sequence and the size, not the motive. The donations are on the filings. The water is in the institute's tables. The abatements are in the state's own accounting.

The rest of the country is turning these down. Nevada's governor keeps backing them.

By the numbers

$1 million — given in May by Jessica Roy, wife of Switch founder Rob Roy, to Gov. Lombardo's reelection committee^[1]
$500,000 each — given the same month by Ben and Felicia Horowitz, of the AI investment firm Andreessen Horowitz^[2]
about $2m — in AI and data center donations to the governor's reelection committee this year^[3]
three days — between the first gift and Lombardo's endorsement of the buildout, by The Lever's reconstruction^[4]
about 70 — data centers operating, under construction or planned across Nevada^[5]
63,300 to 142,600 — Nevada households' worth of water a year once the buildout is finished, across the institute's medium and high cooling scenarios^[6]
about 174% — of the water every other industrial user in Nevada uses combined, in the institute's medium cooling scenario^[7]
about $340m — in Nevada tax abatements awarded to data center projects since 2021, up from $97m in 2021-22 to $240m in 2023-24^[8]
at least 75 — data center projects worth about $130 billion blocked or delayed nationwide in the first three months of 2026^[9]
49 states — with active organised opposition groups, more than double the number in late 2025^[10]

The reporting

This story is built on reporting by The Lever. Read the original →

Sources

Image credits

Hero: source (CC BY-SA 4.0) — Christian David
In text: source (CC BY-SA 4.0) — Planet Labs
In text: source (CC BY 4.0) — Catboy69

We do our best to source photographs that accurately reflect each story, but we are a small team. Some images are illustrative rather than photographs of the specific event described. Every source is listed above.

Citations

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