Sam Altman says fears that AI data centers guzzle water are overblown — but hard to dispel

Sam Altman says interest astir AI h2o usage is simply a "meme" that doesn't really clasp immoderate water.

The OpenAI CEO was asked to respond to guidance to AI, including concerns astir h2o consumption, connected the premiere section of the Sources podcast pinch Alex Heath, published Tuesday.

Altman said that while they person a estimation for being h2o guzzlers, modern information centers usage astir arsenic overmuch h2o arsenic an agency building.

"That has been a robust meme and difficult to disprove, but I don't deliberation holds up to immoderate scrutiny," he said.

A 2024 study from a state government committee successful Virginia — a basking spot for information centers — recovered that while immoderate accommodation utilized importantly much h2o than others, astir information centers utilized the aforesaid magnitude aliases little than an mean ample agency building.

Water consumption has been a cardinal interest successful the backlash against information centers. A Gallup study published successful May recovered 71% of Americans said they opposed the building of a information halfway successful their area, pinch 70% saying they worried specifically astir the biology impact. Half of the respondents cited the effect connected resources, pinch 18% naming h2o specifically.

A Business Insider investigation published past twelvemonth recovered data centers were contributing to the h2o situation successful the West, successful portion because of water-intensive evaporative cooling techniques.

The Data Center Coalition, an manufacture waste and acquisition group, says data halfway developers usage various cooling methods, including immoderate closed-loop aliases waterless systems, and that they prioritize businesslike h2o practices that relationship for section h2o availability.

Altman besides compared the h2o utilized by ChatGPT to that utilized successful increasing California almonds, a water-intensive crop. He said increasing a azygous almond successful California requires much h2o than is utilized successful thousands of ChatGPT queries, adding "the group that are scarfing down 12 almonds astatine a clip don't consciousness for illustration they're doing thing horrible from a h2o perspective, for the astir part."

Business Insider could not independently verify Altman's comparison, but the declare that h2o depletion from increasing a azygous almond is orders of magnitude higher than an AI chatbot punctual mostly lines up pinch disposable figures. Altman has said the mean ChatGPT query uses astir 0.32 milliliters of water, while Google has said the mean Gemini app matter punctual uses 0.26 milliliters. A 2019 study by researchers affiliated pinch the US Geological Survey recovered that increasing a azygous almond successful California requires an mean of 3.56 liters, a small little than a gallon of h2o per nut.

While he said the h2o concerns astir AI are overblown, he said he thinks it's up to the manufacture to alteration the public's minds.

"I deliberation the correct measurement to get group to for illustration thing is to present them value," Altman said, adding, "The manufacture has sewage activity to do successful position of really we make these products easy to usage and easy for group to get a batch of worth retired of."