“In 2022, Microsoft consumed about 22 billion liters of water, an equivalent to filling an Olympic sized pool 8800 times over …”
“Google’s annual water consumption is 6-7 billion liters …”
“Meta’s water consumption stands at 2 billion liters …”
While these numbers are staggering, here’s a catch. These are the outcome of a water consumption surge by 34%, 22% and 3% at Microsoft, Google and Meta respectively.
And there is more to come …
While Chat GPT and other AI services may be available for free to all and priced modestly for their premium versions, they carry a huge environmental and social cost that remains largely unaccounted for. AI is the king all around, when asking questions or using it for making presentations or posts etc., we do not think about water resources. However, ChatGPT alone with 1.4 billion site visits in a single month of August 2023 used an estimated quarter of a gallon per 40 to 100 queries received. Wondering how ?
While AI models running on computer servers may not seem to have any direct relationship with water, the data centers and infrastructure that supports them does. These data centers use millions of gallons of water everyday for cooling the servers. Furthermore, large quantities of water are consumed in even training these AI models. According to academics at the University of California, Riverside, training ChatGPT-3 can directly vaporize 700,000 liters of water!
Burgeoning demand for cloud-based data and services offerings due to AI, Cryptocurrency, and Internet of Things will only add to the troubles. Hyperscale data centers currently estimated at 728 facilities across the world are predicted to cross 1000 facilities by the end of 2024. It is not hard to picture the strain it will put on already stressed water resources.
Water withdrawal is expected to reach levels that were previously unthinkable due to the need for artificial intelligence (AI), projected to be between 4.2 billion and 6.6 billion cubic meters by 2027, equivalent to about half of the UK’s yearly water usage.
It is clear that these figures are unsustainable, especially in our world where water is unavailable for daily necessities to millions of people.
Thereby, it is the need of the hour for laws regarding mandatory water accounting and efficiency measurements to come into the mainstream. Not only technology giants but every company should engage in regularized water accounting and usage measurements to understand their existing demands and make improvements to constantly reduce their water footprint. Complimenting efficiency improvement solutions, there has to be concerted efforts towards surface water harvesting, reuse and recycling.
