The massive computer clusters powering artificial intelligence consume vast quantities to answer the world’s queries, but how is Big Tech redressing the balance?

Writing a 100-word email using ChatGPT (GPT-4, latest model) consumes 1 x 500ml bottle of water It uses 140Wh of energy, enough for 7 full charges of an iPhone Pro Max

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    131·
    12 hours ago

    Yes, the vast majority are closed loop systems and the water isn’t really used up, like a lot of these headlines imply.

    That’s not to say the energy being used can’t be put to better uses, though.

      • HubiEnglish
        2·
        7 hours ago

        It could be used for other things like district heating at least.

        • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          1 hour ago

          Datacenters are usually not located where this would be useful. They’re placed where space and energy are cheap, because everything they do only needs Internet access. At most they’d heat the rest of the building for whatever office space there is.

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.eeEnglish
        101·
        11 hours ago

        The math on this doesn’t really check out. The USA uses 322 billion gallons of fresh water per day. A hyperscale datacenter uses only 5 million gallons per day.

        There are about 1,000 hyperscale datacenters in the USA, so that comes out to 5 billion gallons of water every day.

        That’s 1.5% of our annual freshwater usage, half of which is in closed loop systems and not going anywhere, and the other half being returned to the atmosphere where it will rain back down as fresh water again.

        And of course, the water cycle doesn’t really care about national borders or annual evaporation rates so much, and there is about 1 quintillion gallons of liquid fresh water available worldwide, so its not like sequestering 5 million gallons really offsets the available freshwater needed for hydration and agriculture.