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Jamie Watters

A series on The Journey

AI water use

How much water AI really uses. The best-known figure, a bottle of water per 20 ChatGPT questions, was withdrawn by its own authors in 2023, so this series goes back to the sources.

The pieces, in reading order

  1. Part 1

    AI water use: the bottle of water per 20 ChatGPT questions was withdrawn by its own authors in 2023. It's still quoted in 2026

    The most quoted AI water number, a bottle per 20 ChatGPT questions, was withdrawn by its own authors in October 2023 and is still being repeated. Every AI…

  2. Part 2

    OpenAI's Texas data centre is built to barely use water. The power plants it runs on use 300 times more water than it does

    The company building OpenAI's Stargate campus in Abilene says a 200 megawatt block uses 910,000 gallons of water a year on its website, and about 2 million in…

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