There is a ton of hand-waving in this paper, and they include water from electricity generation (which can easily change depending on the source) and the chip m

There is a ton of hand-waving in this paper, and they include water from electricity generation (which can easily change depending on the source) and the chip manufacturing (which would have to be amortized across the lifetime usage of the chips, still ongoing). The only datacenters that would actually consume water are the ones using open-loop evaporative cooling, which is not all of them. Over time, they'll get replaced with more efficient closed loop systems anyway. Water costs money. Datacenters are highly incentivized to use it as efficiently as possible. If it’s becoming scarce, increase the price and they’ll find ways to be even more efficient.