[venning]

From the linked study: [1]

Total operational water "footprint" of data centers in 2018: 5.13 * 10^8 m^3. Of that, indirect consumption through electricity generation: 3.83 * 10^8 m^3, or 74.7%. And indirect consumption related to water and wastewater utilities (non-electicity production): 4.50 * 10^5 m^3, or 0.09%.

The study then does a reasonable job of discussing the concerns of building data centers in water-stressed places.

This article seems to be another "didn't read the study, saw big number" thing.

[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1 (PDF page 7, section 3.1)

[causal]

Okay that makes more sense. I was skeptical of the article's claim that the water was just being heat-vaporized into oblivion.

That said, more water-sustainable power generation is clearly still a need.