Live on the Las Vegas Strip

01 · The Challenge

The Strip runs on cooling water

Las Vegas cools itself by evaporating water. Commercial cooling is the second-largest water consumer in Southern Nevada, with around a thousand evaporative systems working across the valley — and every one of them loses water to the air as it runs.

For a resort the size of the MGM Grand, that loss is continuous. The question the partners set out to answer: can it be captured back?

02 · The Solution

Capture the water before it’s lost

In November 2023, ahead of the first Las Vegas Grand Prix, an atmospheric water generator built on Watergen technology was installed at the MGM Grand — attached directly to the resort’s evaporative cooling tower. Instead of harvesting humidity from the open air, it captures the warm, moisture-rich exhaust rising off the tower and condenses it back into water for the system.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, MGM Resorts International, F1 Las Vegas and WaterStart partnered on the pilot — a combination of technologies its builders describe as existing nowhere else.

03 · The Outcome

Seven times the race’s needs

The unit recovers up to 4,500 liters a day. Within its first year it had returned more than 750,000 liters to the cooling system — around seven times the water the Las Vegas Grand Prix uses annually to keep its circuit clean.

That surplus supports the race’s stated ambition: to become the first net-zero water consumption event in Formula 1 history.

04 · The Validation

Reported live by the water authority

The Southern Nevada Water Authority — the region’s own water utility — runs the pilot, films it and publishes its numbers. The authority has validated the installation as a water-positive solution, and the results are reported in public, from its own channels.