About half a liter of water is used for every 25 questions that are directed at artificial intelligence platforms like chatbots to cool the data systems, according to experts who worry about the future impacts of these AI systems as water sources are threatened by extreme weather like drought more frequently.
Professor Yüksel Ardalı, a faculty member of the Department of Environmental Engineering at Samsun Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMÜ), said that AI applications, the use of which has increased recently, consume clean water for the cooling processes of data centers.
Ardalı said that AI applications with millions of users use about half a liter of water for every 25 questions per user.
"It has been reported that Google's data centers in the U.S. consumed 12.7 billion liters of fresh water for cooling in 2021. In addition to the water consumption of artificial intelligence applications, carbon emissions to nature are also serious," Ardalı said.
"It has been determined that approximately 240 tons of carbon dioxide is produced while the system is being built and used ... (We) need to consider the environmental effects."
Ardalı said that AI technologies are rising rapidly and their environmental effects raise concerns as he pointed to recent studies that reveal the significant water footprint of AI models as they require enormous amounts of water to maintain and train data centers.
Ardalı noted that scientists use clean water sources to prevent bacterial growth or decay of data centers.
"The water footprint of artificial intelligence models can no longer be ignored, (It) must be addressed as a priority as part of collective efforts to tackle global water challenges."
Ardalı also stated that there are serious carbon emissions in artificial intelligence application data centers.
