AI’s excessive water consumption threatens to drown out its environmental contributions, researchers say
AI’s excessive water consumption threatens to drown out its environmental contributions, researchers say
Artificial intelligence promises revolutionary solutions to global challenges, but the water costs to produce and power AI hardware and infrastructure may exceed the benefits.
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.
Is there a reason the coolant water is unusable afterwards, or is it still pure water? Couldn't we set up these systems next to apartment buildings and pump in warm water to the hot water system to save energy and reuse the water?
Server farms tend to have huge footprints, so putting them in urban areas where land prices are high, is prohibitively expensive - so they won't do it.
There's probably an industrial setting that's in need of hot water? I feel like this is a solvable problem.
i suppose the problem can be solved.
but will not be:- cheap
- easy
- reliable or full