How AI function?
Whenever we ask a question, it is stored in a data center. Many questions are asked at a time, as a result data centers start to heat up. To cool data centers, air cooling and water are used. But how much water does AI uses? Well, because of AI the number of data centers has increased. As AI uses powerful microchips, data centers produce more heat than before. As a result data centers are using water to cool the system instead of air cooling. Because same volume of water is more dense than air which helps to cool down the system properly. Not only they are using water in data centers but also they are only using fresh water.
How much water does AI uses?
In research it is showed that, in 2024 the total number of data centers in US is 1240 but it was 311 in 2010 Which means a 4 times increase in the number of data centers. Also all the data centers are located near fresh water. Almost all data centers are located near GREAT LAKES. GREAT LAKE contains one fifth of the world’s surface fresh water. SO the number of data centers is increasing all over the world because of AI and also almost all of them are using fresh, drinkable water.
Because of a single question that is asked to AI, it uses little less than a teaspoon of water. For 10-40 questions it uses 500 ml water. Open AI says 2.5 billion question is asked to it in a day. If we do the math we can say it consume a lot of water. In another research it is showed mid-size of data center uses 300000 to 500000 gallons of water per day. One gallon=3.785 liters of water. Which means 1135500 to1892500 liters of water. That is the same amount of water, a small town uses everyday. So we can say the data centers of USA use same amount of water which is used by 1240 different cities everyday.
Data centers also need a lot of electricity to run, to produce electricity we need water again. Now data centers are using few hundreds billions liters of water per year. But by 2030 it will use 1 trillion plus liters/year. Because the number of AI users will massively increase by then. As a result, the number of data centers will also increase.
Are we aware?
We can’t say exactly how many million or billion of water is used by data centers every single day across the world. As data centers fresh water using is controversial and people are taking it negatively. This is why a lot of companies are hiding exactly how many data centers they own and where are they located. So it’s hard to say how many data center do we have in the world. And how many will be built. This is why a lot of researchers are trying to create awareness among us. Even in USA,INDIA protest was held against it. read more
Can we do anything about it?
Still there are a lot of things which are in our hand. Nowadays people entered an era where AI became inseparable within few days. People used to depend on google for any information. For that they used to visit different article about the topic they want to know. As it take a little research and time so people prefer AI because it takes less time and give desired answer in one go. But to save few minute we are risking our future. Even google now gives AI overviewed answer. So those who don’t want to use AI, ends up using AI without even wanting to do this.
So, there are few things we still can do. Firstly while searching in google we can search what we want to search but at the end we can add ‘-ai’. If we do this than google won’t show us AI overview. Also we have to try our best to ignore AI and not to use it. But if we really need to use AI than we can switch to eco-friendly option. We can switch to models which consume less water and less energy. Ecosia is such option. Ecosia and it’s AI consume less water and energy. On top of that they plant tress with the money they earn. Not only that, they do other sustainable project.
Power of awareness:
If we look around we can see some people who use AI for no reason. They don’t use it for work instead they use it to gossip or for fun. Even some people tell AI suppose you are my girlfriend/boyfriend and talk to me. They use AI for photo editing and for all the other unnecessary work which can be done in others way. So it is very important to create awareness among them. This is how a lot of unnecessary question and task won’t be done. Which will definitely do less harm.
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