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CTOnews.com, September 10 (Xinhua)-- ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence system developed by Microsoft and OpenAI, needs to be trained by supercomputers, which in turn need a lot of water to cool. The supercomputer, located in West des Moines, Iowa, is one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, providing computing power for OpenAI's fourth-generation language model, GPT-4.

Tuyuan Pexels artificial intelligence development also brings environmental costs, Microsoft and OpenAI admit that their artificial intelligence tools will increase water and energy consumption, but they keep the specific data secret. External researchers estimate that each time using ChatGPT asks 5 to 50 questions, it consumes about 500ml of water. This figure includes indirect water consumption that the company does not measure, such as cooling water for power plants.

CTOnews.com notes that for most of the year, the weather in Iowa is cool enough that Microsoft can use outdoor air to keep supercomputers running and drain heat out of buildings. The company said in a public disclosure that water would be taken for cooling only when the temperature exceeded 29.3 degrees Celsius.

In July 2022, a month before OpenAI said it had completed its GPT-4 training, Microsoft injected about 1150 million gallons of water into its Iowa data center cluster, according to the West des Moines Waterworks. This accounts for about 6 per cent of the total water consumption in the area, which also provides drinking water for the city's residents.

In its latest environmental report, Microsoft revealed that its global water consumption increased by 34% from 2021 to 2022, to nearly 1.7 billion gallons (equivalent to more than 2500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a significant increase compared with previous years. Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, attributed most of the growth to artificial intelligence, including heavy investment in generative artificial intelligence and collaboration with OpenAI.

Google also reported a 20 per cent increase in water use over the same period, which Shaolei Ren attributed to its artificial intelligence work.

Microsoft and OpenAI issued statements this week and Friday, respectively, saying they were investing in the energy and carbon footprint of artificial intelligence and seeking to improve the efficiency of large systems. They also said they would continue to monitor their emissions and accelerate measures such as the use of clean energy to power data centers and the purchase of renewable energy. to achieve their sustainable development goals of carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030.

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