Yes the participants shows that this announcement could be somehow related to water,
the whole idea of artemis is to set up 'fuel stations' in space to then make asteroid/mars mission practical.
and to do that they need to get fuel from the moon to these space refulers at a cheaper/more effecient way than launching from earth.
otherwise they would just launch from earth and not bother with artemis projects.
so ofcourse its about water and the moon mining
you didnt really think SpaceX CSO/CEO elon was only using boring drills for californian road tunnels. nah that was a commercialised sandbox test for drills to then be used in space