The environmental cost of AI keeps growing

The amount of water consumed by tech companies has risen sharply and most of that increase is attributed to the impact of artificial intelligence products and the need to cool the data centers that power them.

Context 

AI systems are already under the spotlight because of the huge amounts of energy they consume at a time when the world is – or should be – focused on net zero. Both Microsoft and Google have previously committed to being carbon free by 2030.

Now AP reports that OpenAI has been drawing potable water from the watershed of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers in central Iowa to help cool its “advanced AI supercomputing data center” in West Des Moines.

The figures 

• Microsoft’s global water consumption jumped 34% from 2021 to 2022. “It’s fair to say the majority of the growth is due to AI [including its partnership with OpenAI],” Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, told AP. 
• Google has reported a 20% growth in water use over the same period; Ren again points a finger at AI, with significantly increased use in Iowa and outside Las Vegas.
• There is also an additional, indirect water cost for cooling power plants supplying data centers with electricity. 
• Ren’s team estimates that ChatGPT uses 500ml of water every time it is asked a series of prompts (including such indirect water usage).

Why AI water use matters

Water use is a sensitive topic in some parts of the US – California, for example, has faced frequent periods of drought over the past couple of decades – so abstracting large volumes of clean water to cool data centers is not sustainable in certain states in the long term. But simply outsourcing the problem to cooler and wetter areas may not be either, if that affects the supply of local drinking water or has an adverse impact on other businesses.

At some point, businesses making use of AI – in marketing or elsewhere – are also going to have to address the issues raised, along with factoring the energy consumption into their own net zero commitments.

Key quote

“Most people are not aware of the resource usage underlying ChatGPT. If you’re not aware of the resource usage, then there’s no way that we can help conserve the resources” – Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside.

Sourced from AP, Microsoft, WARC