AI’s excessive water consumption threatens to drown out its environmental contributions
theconversation.com
Artificial intelligence promises revolutionary solutions to global challenges, but the water costs to produce and power AI hardware and infrastructure may exceed the benefits.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10267315

Initial research shows that AI has a significant water footprint. It uses water both for cooling the servers that power its computations and for producing the energy it consumes. As AI becomes more integrated into our societies, its water footprint will inevitably grow.

The growth of ChatGPT and similar AI models has been hailed as “the new Google.” But while a single Google search requires half a millilitre of water in energy, ChatGPT consumes 500 millilitres of water for every five to 50 prompts.

  • karashta
    4•3 months ago

    If you’re taking water and putting it in a closed loop, you’re effectively removing it from the natural water cycle until you remove it from said closed loop, no?

    I agree the articles make it sound more like they are just burning water out of existence lol.

    • Syl ⏚
      2•3 months ago

      I guess they put in perspective the scarcity of water and the increased usage of AI in the near future…

    • ChainweaselEnglish
      1•3 months ago

      Right, but the way the article is worded it makes it sound like they’re adding 500 mL of water to the loop every single time you enter a prompt.