New Delhi, September 6: Sam Altman has pushed back against growing criticism over the resource consumption of data centres, particularly the water required to support artificial intelligence (AI) computing. The OpenAI CEO argued that public concerns over the use of fresh water to cool large data centres have been exaggerated and overlook major improvements in modern server cooling infrastructure.
Speaking on an episode of the Sources Podcast, Altman addressed growing public resistance to rapid AI expansion and rejected claims that running a single ChatGPT prompt uses as much water as leaving a household shower running continuously for six hours.
Dismissing the viral claim as an online myth, Altman said the actual water usage is far lower. He said the water required to process roughly 38,000 ChatGPT queries is comparable to the amount of water used to produce a single almond in California.
“I saw this thing going around about the water usage of ChatGPT and it was like, ‘every time you run a single ChatGPT query, it’s like you run your shower for like 6 hours and the water never comes back and it’s just it’s done’. I don’t have the exact calculation in front of me, but I think the real number is something like doing this from memory, it might be wrong. For every 38,000 ChatGPT queries, that is the same amount of water that is used in the production of a single almond in California,” he said on the podcast.
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