Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI Inc., at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, Thursday, February 19, 2026.
Prakash Singh | Bloomberg | Getty Images
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman defended the resource requirements of artificial intelligence on Friday, calling concerns about data center water consumption “false” and comparing the energy used by AI systems to that of humans.
Altman was speaking on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit in an interview with The Indian Express when he was asked to respond to common criticisms of AI, such as its energy and water consumption.
The CEO responded that claims circulating online that ChatGPT uses gallons of water per query were “completely false, completely insane” and had “no connection to reality.”
Data centers traditionally use large amounts of water to cool electrical components and prevent overheating. While data center cooling technologies promise reduced consumption, some newer data centers no longer depend on water at all.
Yet even with improved efficiency, a report released last month by water technology company Xylem and Global Water Intelligence projected that water consumption for cooling would more than triple over the next 25 years as IT demand increases, putting pressure on water systems.
While dismissing fears about water consumption, Altman said energy consumption remains a legitimate concern when it comes to AI. “Not by query, but in total – because the world is using AI so much… and we need to move very quickly to nuclear or wind and solar,” he said.
Asked about previous comments Since Microsoft Founder Bill Gates – who suggested that the efficiency of the human brain proves that AI can evolve to also become more energy efficient over time – pushed back on Altman.
“One of the things that’s always unfair about this comparison is people talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model… But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” he said. “It takes about 20 years of life, and all the food you eat before that, before you become intelligent.”
“The fair comparison is if you ask ChatGPT a question, how much energy does it take once a model is trained to answer that question, compared to a human, and probably the AI has already caught up based on energy efficiency, measured that way,” he added.
The process Altman is referring to is known as inference, which refers to using already trained AI models to create new results. AI inference typically requires much less energy than the training itself.
Altman’s comments, particularly the comparison between AI and humans, have since sparked online debate amid growing concern about AI’s ability to replace human labor.
Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and chief scientist of Indian software company Zoho Corporation, present at the summit, criticized the equivalence between humans and AI. “I don’t want to see a world in which we equate technology with a human being,” the billionaire said in a statement. Message.
The debate comes as governments and companies invest billions in new data centers to meet the computing needs of AI systems.
According to a month of May report According to the International Monetary Fund, the power consumption of global data centers in 2023 had already reached levels comparable to those of Germany or France, shortly after the launch of OpenAI’s revolutionary ChatGPT AI model.
In response, some governments have moved to speed up approval processes to bring new, cheap energy online, with some environmentalists warn such measures could conflict with global net-zero emissions targets.
Some local communities in countries like the United States have also pushed back against development projects, fearing they would strain power grids and increase overall electricity costs.
Last week, the San Marcos, Texas, city council rejected a $1.5 billion data center project after months of public opposition.
In the face of such reluctance, many technology leaders, including OpenAI’s Altman, have argued that data centers will require more power generation from a variety of sources, including renewables and nuclear.
