OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: 38,000 Queries Equivalent to Water for One Almond
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated on the Alex Heath podcast that the water used for approximately 38,000 ChatGPT queries is equivalent to the amount needed to produce one almond in California, and mentioned that data centers face a reputation issue rather than a water usage problem.
He noted that the water consumption of modern data centers is roughly comparable to that of large office buildings, citing a Virginia 2024 committee report indicating that most facilities use no more water than large office buildings. He previously wrote that an average query consumes about 0.34 watt-hours and approximately 0.000085 gallons of water (about 0.32 milliliters, roughly one-fifteenth of a teaspoon). Google claims that Gemini text prompts use about 0.26 milliliters. A 2019 study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the average water footprint for one almond in California is about 3.56 liters. Business Insider stated it could not independently verify the precise conversion of 38,000 queries.
The team led by Shaolei Ren at the University of California, Riverside, previously collaborated with media to provide a higher water usage per prompt, later revising the GPT-4 level to about 15 milliliters (about 5 milliliters in the data center), stating that the earlier “one bottle of water” metric is outdated. The discrepancy depends on whether cooling from power plants, training amortization, and ultra-pure water for chips are included. Large-scale data centers can still use millions of gallons daily, with peaks occurring on hot days, and community water networks are designed for peak rather than average queries.
Altman acknowledged that water usage was higher during the era of evaporative cooling, now emphasizing closed-loop or low-water cooling. He argued that the public feels no guilt about consuming a handful of almonds but is sensitive about queries, indicating a cognitive asymmetry. Community opposition to new data centers revolves around water rights and electricity prices, not teaspoon arithmetic.
Single milliliters and one nut can be juxtaposed, but overall installations are still priced according to power stations and cooling towers. When metrics are not standardized, the juxtaposition favors dissemination.
In market mechanisms, buyers are cloud and model companies that need to build data centers, while sellers are water and electricity from drought-stricken areas. The driving force is that site selection conflicts have become memes. Funding comes from electricity costs and capital expenditures for recirculating water systems. Beneficiaries are platforms that can reduce disputes to almond metaphors in public relations, while the pressured parties are municipalities that need to expand pipelines for peak days.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Sam Altman uses almonds to rewrite the narrative of data centers from "draining small towns" to "less than a bag of nuts." 0.32 milliliters is his average query, while 3.56 liters is the field water footprint for almonds; the denominators differ: one inference aligns with the entire crop lifecycle. 38,000 multiplied by 0.32 milliliters does not equal 3.56 liters, indicating that this statement is rhetorical rather than a verifiable equation. Ren retracted the "one bottle of water" claim, and industry figures are starting to align closer to teaspoons, but the daily water usage of supercomputing parks has not been reduced to teaspoons. The office building analogy manages single steady states but cannot account for a row of parks fully loaded in summer.
The capital path is to exchange closed-loop cooling for permits. The Virginia report is treated as a talisman because that area has the densest data centers. The motivation is to dismantle the water meme at site selection hearings; the strategy is to shift criticism from total usage to per-query metrics. The real bills are in transformers and water rights, not in podcast juxtaposition. Ultra-pure water for chips belongs to the supply chain and is rarely included in query denominators.
Analogous subjects include the electricity cost per Bitcoin transaction versus a single search, and airline passengers versus a tree. Unit comparisons always favor dissemination but are useless for watershed planning. The phase is shifting from "one bottle of water per prompt" to "a few drops per prompt," while community opposition has not decreased proportionally.
This represents a transfer of pricing power. The unit of measurement for water usage disputes is shifting. The mechanism is: select average queries, the number gets smaller; select hot day data centers, the number gets larger. Whoever defines the denominator first wins the news. Municipalities expand capacity based on peak usage, while companies defend based on averages, creating a conflict stuck between two denominators.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Change the denominator, and the crime can become a snack.
Average queries are small, but hot day data centers are not.
Meme fears juxtaposition, and water networks fear peak usage.