Sam Altman Addresses ChatGPT Water Usage: What 38,000 Queries and One Almond Really Mean
September 4, 2026 — Concerns about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence are gaining renewed attention in the United States after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed how much water modern AI systems use. During a recent interview on the Sources podcast with Alex Heath, Altman pushed back against claims that individual ChatGPT questions consume huge amounts of water. He offered a striking comparison: Altman said that roughly 38,000 ChatGPT queries use about as much water as producing a single almond in California. He also acknowledged that the figure was being recalled from memory and might not be exact. What Did Sam Altman Actually Say? Altman's comments came amid growing discussion about the amount of water used by data centers that operate AI services. He argued that some popular descriptions of AI water consumption are based on older information and do not necessarily represent how modern data centers operate. Altman said modern large data centers can use water ...