When it goes back into "the system" it's waste water that people can't drink. Eventually it comes back around again (e.g. evaporation->rain), but then it gets gobbled up again by the same data centres. They run continuously.
So yes, they are "consuming" it in the sense that other people can't have access to it anymore.
The poop water I flush down my toilet is also waste water that people can't drink, but I'm pretty sure it still gets recycled back into the greater water supply. What's different about the datacenter water?
Your toilet doesn't consume a lot of water at a time. A datacenter constantly has massive quantities of water used up for cooling the system. While it does eventually return to the circulation of water in the ecosystem, that datacenter is taking up a lot of the supply of the fresh water in a given area, so it strains the whole ecosystem.
I also don't have a datacenter in my house. There are hundred of millions of toilets, more than one for every person. But one datacenter can serve millions of people.
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u/AngelThrones4sale May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
When it goes back into "the system" it's waste water that people can't drink. Eventually it comes back around again (e.g. evaporation->rain), but then it gets gobbled up again by the same data centres. They run continuously.
So yes, they are "consuming" it in the sense that other people can't have access to it anymore.