OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says 38,000 ChatGPT queries use as much water as the production of one almond — says data centers use no more water than an office building
- ID
- 21083
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 03 Sep 2026, 10:35 PM
- Fetched
- 03 Sep 2026, 11:36 PM
- Provider
- Tom's Hardware
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-38-000-chatgpt-queries-use-as-much-water-as-the-production-of-one-almond-says-data-centers-use-no-more-water-than-an-office-building
- Source URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
Summary
- Score
- 3.0
- Created
- 03 Sep 2026, 11:37 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- ai_ml_learnerssaas_startup_founders
What happened
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that 38,000 ChatGPT queries consume roughly as much water as producing a single almond, and that data centers use no more water than a comparable office building. The claims appear designed to downplay concerns about AI infrastructure's environmental footprint.
Why it matters
These are self-serving claims from a vendor CEO with a clear incentive to minimize perceived environmental cost; builders should not rely on them for capacity or sustainability planning. The 38,000-queries-per-almond figure, even if taken at face value, is only useful as a rough order-of-magnitude reference when discussing AI inference costs with stakeholders.
Discussion angle
How much weight should builders give to vendor-published environmental figures when deciding where to host inference, and what independent data is actually available?