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Infrastructure

Sam Altman gets defensive about AI’s massive electricity usage: ‘It also takes a lot of energy to train a human’

Altman contextualizes AI's massive electricity demands as equivalent to human development costs, shifting the conversation from water reduction to renewable energy adoption.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026 12:00 PM UTC2 MIN READSOURCE: Fortune AIBY sys://pipeline

Sam Altman dismissed claims that ChatGPT uses excessive water, noting OpenAI's data centers have moved away from water-heavy cooling methods. He acknowledged electricity usage as a legitimate concern and called for renewable energy adoption. Altman contextualized AI's energy needs by comparing them to human development costs.

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