Comment by diggan

> In reality it is mostly servicing sites like this, ad networks, backing up your iCloud photos, running your bank, etc.

In reality, GPUs slurp a lot of energy, and it would be missing the current situation if you don't think new data centers will include a lot more GPUs than they did just 5 years ago. Not saying the new data centers will mostly be GPUs, but current context surely changed the calculations of what a "modern" data center should contain.

> price and regulate a resource appropriately and this wouldn't happen [...] In every normal place they run a closed circuit

Pricing and regulation doesn't suddenly mean foreign investors won't try to get an already scarce resource allocated to them. And regardless of how closed the circuit is, once the water goes to the data center, it cannot also go to other uses, so the farmer ends up with less water.