By Kashif Ali
It was November 2022 when the world witnessed a paradigm shift in the technological realm with the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Since then, there has been a tumult in almost every field associated with technology. Not only ChatGPT, but other prominent chatbots such as Gemini by Google, Copilot by Microsoft, and the Chinese giant DeepSeek, are prevalent in the industry as well.
Their users are increasing by leaps and bounds with the passage of time. Such “helpers” of humanity are considered to be a step forward; however, humans leaning on them may have a disastrous effect to an extent that it is beyond the understanding of a common individual.
Moreover, a befitting quote that must be tailored here is, “Everything comes with a price.” Now, it is hard to trace the origin of this quote; nonetheless, humans have acquired an easy way to get access to material that was otherwise difficult for them to scrape. With one click, yes, only one click, ChatGPT can give you access to millions of results centered on your prompts and keywords. It is nice, isn’t it? Well, every choice comes with a price. What price can ChatGPT demand? It might sound weird, but humanity’s scarcest and one of the most significant resources, water, is the price.
The headquarters of OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, are situated in San Francisco, London, and Dublin etc. These headquarters have basic infrastructure to run the servers of the AI bot. The whole lot of these chatbots are not controlled or run by a single computer, rather, they are handled by heavy-duty cloud servers. To put it simply, OpenAI utilizes a network of computers equipped with high-end GPUs (graphics processing units) in order to run large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT.
This powerful machinery helps in maintenance and keeping the cycle of responses going. It is evident that running such powerful and demanding machinery must require an enormous amount of energy. This energy comes from electricity and in turn, electricity is the product of water production and usage at grids and hydropower stations. The servers, planted at the headquarters of these AI companies, are indispensably required to be kept cool to keep things running.
The only source for this pacification is water. One needs to understand the subtlety of this. ChatGPT or other chatbots are run on servers, these servers in turn are kept operational in a cool and power-consuming environment, and ultimately, this power comes from water. To make things like shooting fish in a barrel, AI is a substantial threat to water.
In 2025, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UN-Water published a report, The World Water Development Report 2025, elucidating the current scenario of water scarcity around the globe.
The report highlighted the exacerbating situation of water, leading to a crisis that will affect half of the population. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) further explained that four billion people face inadequacy of water for at least one month of each year, placing this crisis in an alarming position.
Furthermore, around 700 million people might be displaced by 2030 owing to the scarcity of water. By 2040, UNICEF estimates that roughly 1 out of 4 children in the world will be living in water-scarce areas. Moving on, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations issued a report warning the world about the quandary of water scarcity by disclosing that factors such as urbanization, growing population, and industrialization will lead to aggravation of the already-limited status quo of water. By now, it can be understood easily that water is the crown jewel of humans.
Unfortunately, the AI, which was considered to be the solution to human dilemmas, is proving itself to be skating on thin ice for humans. Food and Water Watch Organization published an article stating that by 2028, the U.S Artificial Intelligence industry may consume as much electricity as 28 million households, magnifying the water crisis further.
After rigorous research, the organization claims to have found that before 2030, 300 terawatt-hours (TWh) will be the consumption rate of the AI industry in the USA. Moreover, the servers planted at the AI headquarters, only in the USA, require as much as 720 billion gallons of water annually in order to stay cool. This is a huge amount that may cater to 18.5 million households.
Subsequently, President Trump announced an investment of $500 billion to modernize the AI sector and hasten its development. One can assess the amount of damage being caused by AI by keeping in mind that one simple search or prompt of ChatGPT consumes ten times more energy than a Google prompt. The facts and figures that have been mentioned are the tip of an iceberg of the damage humans are facing and may face, in the ugliest of ways, in the future.
Humanity is on the verge of an extreme drought-laden world where resources could be war inciters. Among these resources, water is of utmost importance. Humans have to accept that it has now become a reality that technology is indispensable.
However, ways to curb and curtail its draconian effects can be devised. Firstly, there is an exigency for people to understand the process, i.e., they must be educated about the overuse of technology such as ChatGPT. Secondly, the world authorities and world leaders need to step in.
Developed countries need to concoct plans to conserve water and channelize ways to recycle it, owing to their rich economies, which will help in making plans executable. Thirdly, the responsibility of making environment-friendly machinery and technology falls on the shoulders of Computer engineers who have developed these systems; an unquenchable thirst for power can be mitigated by working for the solution. Ultimately, infrastructure is an important point in this, which needs to be developed in order to address and solve the hazardous effects of AI.
About the Author
The author is an M.Phil scholar at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad. With a keen interest in research writing, he addresses the national and international contemporary issues, writing for different news outlets.
