The talk about AI water usage exists because in Karen Hao’s book Empire of AI, she got water usage wrong by three orders of magnitude.[1] For data centers that use water cooling, it's almost always non-potable water, and it's usually returned to the body of water it was pumped out of (though slightly warmer).

If you're worried about water consumption, things like golf courses and farm subsidies for water-intensive crops are much bigger issues.

1. https://blog.andymasley.com/p/empire-of-ai-is-wildly-mislead...