Modern data centers can be designed with near-zero direct water consumption. It isn’t fundamentally necessary to consume huge amounts of water to cool computers. What’s the story with those new data centers? Do they actually choose to do evaporative cooling that people are complaining about or people are complaining about problem that doesn’t exist?

They choose evaporative cooling simply because it's cheaper than a closed loop system for energy use and land area.

How? In most locations for much of the year you need to reject heat either by evaporating water or using electricity (more water) to run a refrigeration cycle.

It doesn’t matter what the actual reality is. People think that data centers waste water, and they don’t like that.

The beef from a single hamburger uses far more water than a year of ChatGPT usage. Few try to reduce consumption in favor of more efficient foods by comparison. It’s about perception.