As billions of dollars in promised funding flood the U.S. semiconductor industry, manufacturers are increasingly turning their attention to a key issue: Water usage. … Prior research has found that semiconductor production can require up to 10 million gallons of ultrapure water per day, a grade of H2O that’s virtually free of all impurities. … For chip manufacturers, the challenge lies in not just securing high volumes of ultrapure water, or UPW, but also in purifying it to a usable degree and recycling the wastewater within the manufacturer’s ecosystem. … [S]ources say much more is needed — and possible — to make semiconductor manufacturing’s water use a sustainable enterprise.