My understanding is that datacenter water consumption is not really that big of a deal compared to other industries, and it's mostly inflated by people who are looking for a reason to criticize AI/datacenters. If Nvidia is hoping to placate those people, I predict it will not work.
I wish there was more transparency and discussion brought to the water and power consumption of other major industries today, as well as the historical use and environmental impact of pre-EPA industries and early manufacturing. I want to believe that relatively, AI data centers and hyperscalers are much less damaging than the industrial revolution-era factories, but without knowing the absolute impacts of both to compare, all this fear mongering and propaganda is going to continue to drive knee-jerk reactions as opposed to well-informed analysis and discussion.
Does anyone have any sources for this sort of data?