Recent media reports have made two important arguments about India’s rapidly expanding data-centre industry: that treated wastewater can meet much of its cooling needs, reducing competition with households, rivers and aquifers for freshwater; and that the problem cannot be blamed on data centres alone but reflects the deeper failure to govern water as a scarce resource. Both propositions are sound. But turning them into dependable practice will require more than asking data centres to buy recycled water. Cities and states must guarantee a steady supply of good-quality, secondary-treated wastewater.