Google’s water and power usage at its data centre in the U.S. state of Nebraska, which it asked to keep confidential as a trade secret, was exposed due to sloppy document redaction.

Gigazine, a Japanese online media outlet, reported on Oct. 5 that hidden figures appeared when the redacted portions of an annual report for Google’s Lincoln data centre submitted to Nebraska were copied and pasted into another document.

Google asked that power and water use at three data centres in Nebraska — Lincoln, Omaha and Papillion — be treated as trade secrets. But in the public document, the blacked-out text had not actually been deleted. That made it possible to 확인 the power and water use as well as expected tax refunds.

The Lincoln data centre’s maximum power demand was 52.65 MW. Annual water used for cooling towers, evaporative cooling systems and facility operations totalled 13,299,000 gallons, or about 50,342,191 litres. That is enough to fill about 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Tax information was also exposed. The Lincoln facility expected refunds of $55,822,472 of the taxes paid in 2025. Papillion was listed at $39,171,573 and Omaha at $22,558,881. The report also specified that the facilities used or planned to use sales and use tax exemptions under the Nebraska Advantage Act, while they did not receive and did not plan to receive incentive payments under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act.

Nebraska is reviewing the resource burden caused by a surge in data centres. Total water use in 2025 reported by six data centres by Sept. 30 reached 765,000,000 gallons, or about 2,895,840,000 litres. Google’s Papillion data centre was the largest at 547,880,000 gallons, or about 2,073,950,000 litres.

Google operates data centres in Papillion, Omaha and Lincoln in Nebraska. It is also investing in local water resource projects such as reducing agricultural water use and replenishing groundwater.