Earth Day 2024
It was Earth Day yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it (Greenwashing). I’ve posted about the power consumption needs of Big Tech and the ‘next big thing’ but finally found an article on the water impact, which has gone under the radar somewhat.
Nabiha Syed
There’s an underlying misconception that data centres don’t use much water, or that it’s recycled anyway. That can certainly be the case if you invest in technology which increases efficiency and keeps away from open loop cooling. Investment costs money though and only the environment benefits.
Data centres use potable water (drinking water). They use a lot of it - here’s the direct link to the paper.
“For example, training GPT-3 in Microsoft’s state-of-the-art U.S. data centers can directly evaporate 700,000 liters of clean freshwater, but such information has been kept a secret.”
As demand increases and we hear more about hyperscale data centres (there are plans to build one in my County), this is a consideration that needs to be included. It’s not yet legislated or required (I think only France has banned open loop cooling) and there’s still a belief that they create lots of long-term jobs (they don’t). So questions at planning remain limited.
“For inference (i.e., conversation with ChatGPT), our estimate shows that ChatGPT needs a 500-ml bottle of water for a short conversation of roughly 20 to 50 questions and answers, depending on when and where the model is deployed. Given ChatGPT’s huge user base, the total water footprint for inference can be enormous”
Models have been getting much bigger since GPT-3. And AI much more popular.
But yeah, Earth Day eh?