[non-]

One of the selling points they mention is that they won't need to use any fresh water for cooling.

My understanding was that water-demands on Earth were an overblown issue and minuscule when compared to other uses of fresh water such as watering one acre of farmland.

Not to mention, "used" water is just "warm" water that can then be used again for other purposes.

So are they perpetuating a myth here? Or is water use a bigger issue than I thought?

[thinkingtoilet]

Well, for one thing you can't eat GPUs, so I'm ok with farmland taking up more water.

Also, the "warm" water has already destroyed ecosystems because the data centers are just dumping it. It's a completely solvable issue if we had any common sense regulations.

[welferkj]

It's not a real issue, but it's truthy enough to generate real opposition to datacenter buildout and catalyze AI hate. So definitionally avoiding it from the get-go might end up being worth it.

[sanex]

It really depends where they get the water. If they're pumping an aquifer fry and doing evaporative cooling they could be just boiling an entire areas water source. If they could figure out how to use salt water it'd be ideal.

[heeton]

Minor correction: the water is evaporated. It remains in the water cycle but is removed from the water source for any downstream users.