A leaked internal document reveals that Amazon strategized to keep the full extent of its data centers' water consumption from the public. The memo, seen by The Guardian and SourceMaterial, shows that the company's cloud computing division, AWS, opted to report on a smaller water usage figure to minimize reputational risk. The document also noted that disclosing the wider company's water usage could lead to accusations of a cover-up. Amazon has responded to the report, describing the leaked document as “obsolete” and stating that it “completely misrepresents Amazon’s current water usage strategy”. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft and Google, who regularly publish their water consumption figures, Amazon has not publicly disclosed how much water its server farms consume. The company is the world's largest owner of data centers and is planning a significant expansion as it pushes further into artificial intelligence.