You’re Thinking About AI and Water All Wrong
The Misunderstood Water Footprint of AI
The debate over the environmental impact of artificial intelligence (AI) has been gaining momentum in recent years, with some arguing that the growing use of AI is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption. However, a closer examination of the numbers reveals a more nuanced picture. In this article, we'll delve into the complexities of AI's water footprint and explore why the conversation around this issue is so critical.
The AI Water Issue Is Fake
Last month, journalist Karen Hao posted a Twitter thread acknowledging a substantial error in her blockbuster book Empire of AI. Hao had written that a proposed Google data center in a town near Santiago, Chile, could require "more than one thousand times the amount of water consumed by the entire population" – a figure that, thanks to a unit misunderstanding, appears to have been off by a magnitude of 1,000. This mistake highlights the need for a more accurate understanding of AI's water footprint.
How AI Uses Water
Onsite at a data center, water is mostly used for cooling. Processors in data centers run hot, and circulating water through them is one way to keep them at the right temperature; the water that absorbs the heat is then transferred to a cooling tower, where some of it evaporates. Salty and brackish water can corrode machinery, so many companies use potable water, drawing directly from municipal supplies. The amount used depends heavily on the individual data center, with some using more water to avoid running electric cooling systems and others using more electricity to lessen their water footprint.
Complicating Factors
Calculating the water use of a given data center is difficult and contingent, isolating the effects at the level of a single user or prompt is nearly impossible. Understanding the environmental impacts of specific large language models (LLMs) is almost entirely dependent on sustainability disclosures from Big Tech, and while some have gotten more transparent, a lot of questions still remain. When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned in a personal blog post that an "average" ChatGPT query used "roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon" of water, he gave some parameters for understanding the company's water and energy use – but also didn't clarify key details, like the definition of an "average" query and whether or not the figure includes the energy and water cost of training an AI model.
We Use a Lot of Water Without Thinking
One of the main arguments in the popular Substack post by Andy Masley is that there are industries that currently use much more water than AI, and that context needs to be part of the conversation. This is undoubtedly true. A single burger takes more than 400 gallons of water to produce; a humble cotton T-shirt takes more than 700. The United States' 16,000 golf courses, meanwhile, each have the potential to use on average between 100,000 to 2 million gallons of water per day. For comparison, Google says its thirstiest data center in Iowa consumed about 2.7 million gallons per day in 2024; most of the company's data centers used substantially less.
Experts Weigh In
Experts caution against dismissing concerns about water outright. "In the near term, it's not a concern and it's not a nationwide crisis," says Cornell professor Fengqi You. "But it depends on location. In locations that have existing water stress, building these AI data centers is gonna be a big problem." Computing researcher Jonathan Koomey made a similar point, noting that while people have a tendency to exaggerate the environmental impacts of computers, data centers' water use is "not something where you can just hand-wave it away."
Why Water Use and Data Centers Is a Big Deal to Some People
The American public needs to seriously reconsider how it thinks about water as a resource. Droughts across the American West, juiced up by climate change, are showing in real time that the way the US economy has oriented itself around a seemingly unending water supply is pretty quickly becoming unsustainable. A 2023 New York Times investigation found that groundwater reservoirs across the country – not just in areas experiencing drought – are being overpumped, threatening both drinking water supplies and economic activity.
Conclusion
The conversation around AI and water is complex and multifaceted. While AI's water footprint is not as significant as some might claim, it is still an important issue that requires attention and transparency. As the use of AI continues to grow, it is essential to consider the environmental implications of this technology and to demand more from companies that are reshaping the economy to achieve their goals. By doing so, we can ensure that the benefits of AI are realized while minimizing its negative impacts on the environment.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/karen-hao-empire-of-ai-water-use-statistics/
