I always rant about tech moving to Austin.

They need low heat, reliable power, cheap / fast internet, and an abundance of water.

Texas is literally none of those things.

Industrial cooling is all about evaporating some liquid into gas. For evaporative coolers, that liquid is water and works best if the air is dry and water is plentiful (the absurd part). If you don't have water or the air is so humid that evaporation is difficult, the liquid is expensive refrigerant which must recycle back into liquid in a closed loop with a gas compressor that pumps the waste heat into the air through forced convection heat exchangers (big fans blowing air past hot refrigerant-filled pipes), all of which consumes a lot of energy.

Ideally, we'd live in a post scarcity society in which huge arrays of solar panels would provide electricity to run closed-loop refrigerant plants that would consume zero water to cool our data centers.

There's only one obvious answer to that question in a capitalism world. Because it's cheaper than other places. Why is it cheaper for the corporations in the driest places where common people need to stop using showers is also obvious.

Because that usually means it's hot and sunny so things grow well if you can get water to it.

It's easier to get water places than make it warmer or sunnier in the optimal water place.

Edit: sorry this was me thinking about the alfalfa sprout comment above. Makes zero fucking sense for IT.