Construction Physics [1] and Hank Green [2] have done good takes. Broadly speaking, most general-use datacenters use evaporative cooling (i.e. open loop) because it's cheap [3]. AI datacenters reject so much heat, however, that even absent public pressure they pretty much need closed loops [4].

The misconception is that while both of these processes use a lot of water, we both have and use tremendously more. That makes their levels tiny compared with plenty of uncontroversial, thoughtless uses. And the increasing efficiency makes this a choke point across medium-term scaling. (And replacing an AI datacenter with a conventional one counterproductive from a water-conservation perspective.)

Power—and with it, noise, air pollution and grid-upgrade costs—is the real and present problem.

[1] https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-does-the-us-use-w...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc&t=240s

[3] https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275...

[4] https://axis-intelligence.com/data-center-liquid-cooling-sta...