[randallsquared]

I assumed people here mostly already knew that water usage for data centers was trivial compared to lots of uses like alfalfa, non-data-center power generation, etc. My point used that as a foundation, so I agree that if you didn't already know that, it's undermined. It's a quick thing to dig into though, via search or LLM. You could start with Andy Masley: xcancel.com/andymasley / x.com/andymasley

[pjdesno]

Most people don't plant an alfalfa field in the desert and then try to use the local municipal water supply for irrigation.

Some of the folks looking to build datacenters to cash in on the AI craze aren't as bright as that.

[randallsquared]

Water is pretty fungible, so while it might not be that alfalfa fields in the Arizona and southern California desert are irrigated from a residential pipe, it's the same water either way. Whether the water arrives at the field/datacenter via municipal pipe or irrigation canal doesn't seem relevant, except that a municipal pipe probably could supply most datacenters' needs, while desert alfalfa has a whole different scale of usage.

But if your point is that no one would farm alfalfa in the desert and use water that would otherwise be available for residential use, you are quite wrong.