{"id":6959,"date":"2023-10-30T06:41:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T06:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/markets\/big-tech-has-a-water-problem-ai-is-making-it-worse-report-says\/"},"modified":"2023-10-30T06:41:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T06:41:28","slug":"big-tech-has-a-water-problem-ai-is-making-it-worse-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=6959","title":{"rendered":"Big Tech Has a Water Problem. AI Is Making It Worse, Report Says."},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Artificial intelligence is a gamechanger. It\u2019s also a water guzzler.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new study finds that Alphabet\u2019s Google (ticker: GOOGL),
\n Microsoft,<\/span>
\n (MSFT) and
\n Meta Platforms
\n (META) together withdrew more than 2 billion cubic meters of freshwater for server cooling and electricity usage in 2022, more than twice Denmark\u2019s total water withdrawal in a year. <\/p>\n

\n

Training natural language models\u2014such as GPT, the model behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT\u2014requires water to cool the power-hungry data-center servers that run those programs. The same goes for Bard, developed by Alphabet\u2018s Google, and Bing Chat from Microsoft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAI represents one of the most prominent and fastest expanding workloads in data centers,\u201d said researchers from the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Texas at Arlington, in a paper awaiting peer review. AI models also have a big water footprint that \u201chas remained under the radar,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Shaolei Ren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside, and a co-author of the paper, said data centers are \u201cextremely thirsty\u201d and \u201cuse an enormous amount of water for both on-site cooling and off-site electricity generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ren and his colleagues estimate that training GPT-3 \u201cin Microsoft\u2019s state-of-the-art U.S. data centers\u201d consumes a total of 5.4 million liters of water over about two to four weeks and that GPT-3 \u201cneeds to \u2018drink\u2019\u201d the equivalent of a 500ml bottle of water\u2014about 17 fluid ounces\u2014for a simple conversation of about 10-50 questions and answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers may increase for the newly-launched GPT-4 that reportedly has a substantially larger model size,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Water has already become a big issue for Big Tech, cropping up regularly in company sustainability reports that tout \u201cwater stewardship\u201d and becoming \u201cnet water positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft,\u00a0Meta Platforms\u2018 (META)\u00a0Facebook,\u00a0and\u00a0Google,\u00a0have all pledged to be \u201cwater positive\u201d and replenish more water than they use in their direct operations by 2030.<\/p>\n

Google said in its latest environmental report that in 2022 \u201ctotal water consumption at our data centers and offices was 5.6 billion gallons\u2014the equivalent of what it takes to irrigate 37 golf courses annually, on average, in the southwestern United States.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Google referred\u00a0Barron\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>to a blog post that describes what the company calls a\u00a0climate-conscious approach to cooling\u00a0its data centers and lays out its commitment to \u201cchampion responsible water use.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the blog post, in 2021, the average Google data center consumed 450,000 gallons of water a day\u2014about the same amount of water it would take to irrigate 17 acres of turf lawn grass once. That is also equivalent to the water needed to manufacture 160 pairs of jeans, including growing the cotton needed, the post says.<\/p>\n

Google said that as climate change continues to exacerbate water challenges around the world, the company remains \u201ccommitted to investing in technologies that reduce both energy and water consumption.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI didn\u2019t\u00a0immediately\u00a0respond\u00a0to a\u00a0request\u00a0for\u00a0comment.<\/p>\n

In its latest sustainability report, Microsoft similarly said the company consumed 6.4 million cubic meters of water, or 1.7 million cubic meters more than the prior year.<\/p>\n

The company has previously said it is tackling its water consumption in two ways: reducing its water use intensity\u2014the amount it uses per megawatt of energy used for operations\u2014and\u202freplenishing\u202f supplies in the water- stressed regions where it operates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in its latest sustainability report, Meta, the parent of Facebook, noted that its data centers are responsible for a large portion of its water use. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithin our global footprint, our data centers generate the highest percentage of our energy use, water use and GHG emissions, which is why increasing their efficiency is critical in maintaining net zero operations and striving for a net zero value chain,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

Write to Lauren Foster at lauren.foster@barrons.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence is a gamechanger. It\u2019s also a water guzzler.\u00a0\u00a0 A new study finds that Alphabet\u2019s Google (ticker: GOOGL), Microsoft, (MSFT) and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets"},"yoast_head":"\nBig Tech Has a Water Problem. AI Is Making It Worse, Report Says. | inFundPros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Artificial intelligence is a gamechanger. 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