AI Uses Less Water Than the Public Thinks

Artificial intelligence (AI) will affect many economic and natural resource sectors as these new technologies develop and mature. We are in the early years of this process. Like most new things, AI has become an object of small and great hopes and fears – from hopes for saving and helping humans to fears for destroying human minds and civilizations. A common concern in the media is AI’s water use and its larger implications. While most AI concerns are speculative in these early days, AI water use is an example of our fears and hopes, as well as how some advocates (and researchers) can seize on public attention as an opportunity for advocacy (and funding).

Early days of new technology bring wild fears and hopes as seen in media and public discourse. Americans, as historical leaders of new technologies, have seen these many times, from flying cars of the Jetsons and Star Wars, to vaccines, surveillance technologies and databases, sewers, drinking water chlorination, etc. Some hopes and fears prove illusory (e.g., flying cars), some mostly positive (e.g., vaccines, water chlorination and fluoridation), while others prove to be more mixed (e.g., surveillance technologies and databases, the internet, and automobiles).

The rise of artificial intelligence is built on factories of data and computation, so-called data centers. These large warehouses of networked computers on racks require substantial energy to operate and water for cooling, in addition to physical square footage on the landscape. These computation “factories” have large energy demands that can influence local electricity prices. Their water use is mostly for cooling needs from the heat produced from their electricity use.