Sure the water is still somewhere, but its location is important for future use. US water reservoirs are at problematically low levels already.

> Most data centers are closed loop systems, they circulate the water over and over again.

The linked article talks about >500 million gallons used by one large Google AI datacenter in a year. It's nice that most are closed loop systems, but if it's such a common thing to do then why isn't it done by default with all those AI datacenters? How cheap is water for Google that recirculating it is not a no-brainer?

> It's not even used up in agriculture.

However, the source of the water can be "used up" faster than it can be replenished, such as in the case of some aquifers

That’s not entirely correct. Overall water is preserved but local sources of freshwater can be depleted or contaminated, which raises the cost of water.