Carolina Gómez Mena
La Jornada newspaper
Sunday, April 20, 2025, p. 8
Have fun or spend a short video on platforms like Tik tok, Facebook or make a reel, On average, it consumes between one and 30 liters of water, says Adriana Pérez Espinoza, research professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) Iztapalapa.
He explains that this is because the data centers of the technology companies that store, process and transmit information, require water to be cooled, since their processes generate heat.
The science teacher exposes The day that not only artificial intelligence (AI) consumes water, but also the use of all other social media and streaming
For example, training the AI GTP-3 chat, according to estimates from the University of California, required 700 thousand liters and Imperial College London points out that to download a Gigabyte of data about 200 liters of water are spent, But it is easy for us to download the same thing. When you lose it on the device, we get it down again without repairing water spending. In addition, most people do not even know that there is a connection
. That is what is known as the Digital water footprint
.
To reduce it, many global technology companies have undertaken initiatives or sustainability agreements.
Meta has focused on the use of solar and wind energies that will contribute to the reduction of water use, use wastewater and support projects in the regions where their data centers are to recover aquifers.
Pérez Espinoza explained.
