[leoedin]

Unfortunately the moment the environment and energy are involved, journalism falls apart. "Water consumption" is a meaningless metric if it 's not accompanied by other information - location, energy intensity of water, source of water, where the water goes next. None of this stuff is ever included.

A mill next to a river "consumes" the water that turns its wheel, but then immediately releases it back into the river. That's very different to a cooling tower that turns that water into vapour and releases it into the air. Which is the data centre doing?

Assuming the data centre isn't actively depleting groundwater, the only important number is how much energy it consumes (including for water related activities). Perhaps also power per unit of compute.

In a lot of places in the world, using water for cooling is likely to be more efficient than an equivalent heat pump - so should be celebrated!