How is deleting locally-stored files on your home PC going to save water, when your hardware sips resources vs. any AI datacenter in existence?

Most people save these thing in some sort of cloud storage solution.

A small data center has been estimated to use upwards of 25 million liters of water per year if it relies on old-school cooling methods that allow water to evaporate.

So pass a law banning evaporative cooling systems from all industrial and commercial applications (or single out data centers), give them 6 months to comply and start handing out fines every day past the deadline.

No, most people do not store their files in a cloud storage solution.

Nice analogy. I used this one in the past: "you can't fix a full disk by deleting word documents", but I like yours more

straight up not feasible for many serious and necessary facilities like powerplants and refineries, unless you prefer very warm lake or river nearby (which also cools down by evaporation later)

So where does this water go after evaporating or leaking from your toilet? Is it flying into deep space and being lost for our planet forever?

straight up not feasible for many serious and necessary facilities like powerplants and refineries, unless you prefer very warm lake or river nearby (which also cools down by evaporation later)

Raining over the ocean where it is no longer in the stores of freshwater these systems are pulling from

So this doesn't sound like a big deal after all. Maybe just stop pulling water from those "stores of freshwater" for cooling purposes and get your own from the ocean.

straight up not feasible for many serious and necessary facilities like powerplants and refineries, unless you prefer very warm lake or river nearby (which also cools down by evaporation later)

They could heat many houses or fill many heat reservoirs instead.

straight up not feasible

It's very feasible to create the law, collect the fine, and raise the price on energy sources or industrial process that require the cooling.

It's a formality, you could do it in an afternoon. Costs a bit of ink and a piece of paper.

"But then it gets more expensive!" and "This might push corporations out of the city/country." is the consequence the people / the government / the country have to have the balls to endure, if they want to stand by things like "having enough water" or "living on earth in the 22nd century".

If the free market is something you believe in, you should love this, because it makes water a more scarce resource and the market will be able to find another optimal solution to that new scarcity problem.

Show me how do you want to dissipate 10GWt inland without evaporative cooling towers, i'll wait

Depending on local climate, season and proximity to cities or industrial customers, this is often done, but you'll still have to dump lots of heat in the summer when space heating is off

Corrosion issues, marine life clogging, too expensive, etcetc.

Yeah, let them figure it out. It's their problem after all. If it's more expensive, then let them increase prices for their "data serving" activities. If it's too expensive for some people, they might reconsider their usage of said services which in turn might be equivalent of "deleting old files or emails". Instead of asking people deleting files right now before those in charge even tried to fix the problems they created.

Show me how do you want to dissipate 10GWt inland without evaporative cooling towers, i'll wait