It seems that the technological giants use the liquid element as a fundamental part of their infrastructures.
It is a fact that models based on artificial intelligence are representing a before and after in the technological world, but, perhaps, what you would never have imagined is that through their implementation, some of the big companies of the sector would have to spend an exorbitant amount of water. If you want to know the reason why this has happened in the last year, we will explain it in depth below.
What relationship does excessive water spending have with AI?
Recently, some of the world’s technology giants have published their environmental impact reports and some surprising data have caught the attention of locals and strangers. Microsoft has published its Environmental Sustainability Report for the year 2022 and Google has shown on its website a similar report for the current year.
According to the company founded by Bill Gatesthe report states that the water consumption increased by 34% from 2021 to 2022, with almost 6.5 billion liters of water that have been used for various purposes, which we will refer to later. For its part, Google ensures that the increase in consumption in said period has been twenty%.
#AI #GenerativeAI #TechDevelopers: Microsoft, OpenAI and Google Acknowledge Growing Demand for AI Tools Carries Hefty Costs https://t.co/Ksz9QXugjp
—AI News (@DailyAITechNews) September 9, 2023
If you’re wondering what AI has to do with water consumption, according to the information published on the Associated Press websiteand in the mouth of Shaolei Ren, researcher at Riverside University:
It is fair to say that the majority of the growth is due to artificial intelligence, including the significant investment in generative AI and the partnership with OpenAI.
A study carried out by this researcher, which will be published at the end of the year, states that every time you ‘talk’ to ChatGPT and you ask it to answer between 5 and 50 questions, water consumption is equivalent to half a liter of water, depending on where the servers are located and the season of the year. And it is, in part, because of the server cooling system that water consumption has skyrocketed in recent months.
The aforementioned companies affirm that they are taking the necessary measures so that the consumption of resources is not so excessive, with Microsoft pointing out what he is looking for limit environmental impact of their systems and with OpenAI recognizing that training their large models requires large amounts of energy and resources. The ventilation through air It is used in those locations where the temperature is not excessive, but when it rises, water must be relied on to cool the demanding systems. Are we facing a problem that will have a quick solution or do we need to take the threat of AI to our natural resources very seriously?