You don’t need a large constant source of water. It’s a bit like filling a very large swimming pool. They also already have plants down there and it works for them because AZ is surprisingly shielded from natural disasters. Also they can utilize solar power down there.
AZ suffers from heat waves, which are steadily getting worse over time. Last year in a heat wave Phoenix saw several days above 115F. A 115F heatwave is a natural disaster mitigated by air conditioning. Hopefully a heat wave doesn’t coincide with a 2020 Texas sized electrical blackout.
This isn’t a massive problem now, but imagine how bad AZ heat waves will be by the end of his factories life.
Where do you propose to build, then? Alaska? I live near the massive Intel campuses in Hillsboro, OR. We rarely get above 100F, but we experienced the same several days of 115F+ weather this last June just before summer officially hit. Almost 200 people died in Oregon/Washington directly from that heatwave and up to 500 in BC, Canada[1].
I don’t think heat is an issue. I remember a bunch of Middle Eastern countries considered building fabs in order to diversify away from oil about 20 years ago. Of course, they also realized they’d need to import labor as well due to low-skill and unwilling local labor.
