Water worries flood in as chip industry and AI models grow thirstier

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Mega makers already operate in water-scarce areas, and worry is they'll drink us dry

The water consumption of semiconductor companies is on the increase, it notes, both absolutely and on a per-unit basis as production processes become more advanced. At the same time, changes in weather patterns are making water availability unpredictable, with more extreme weather, droughts and less frequent rainfall.

TSMC's demand for water at its Taiwan factories could double from the 2022 level by 2030, S&P Global estimates, and the report warns that if the company misjudges its water supply management, the result could see it miss production forecasts for 2030 by up to ten percent. Many of these producers paradoxically operate in areas where there is water scarcity, such as Shanghai in China, parts of Korea, and the US state of Arizona, where both TSMC and Intel are

Training GPT-3 in Microsoft's datacenters may consume a total of 5.4 million liters of water, and additionally uses the equivalent of a 500ml bottle of water for every 10-50 responses, depending on when and where it is deployed, the report claims.

 

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