Sam Altman says ChatGPT water use claims are 'completely untrue' — but admits AI energy use is a concern

• Sam Altman dismisses claims about ChatGPT’s water usage as “totally fake”
• Experts warn that scaling AI infrastructure is driving huge costs and increasing pressure on power, cooling, and resources
• The real issue isn’t efficiency — it’s whether AI can grow at this scale without serious environmental impact

Speaking at an event hosted by The Indian Express, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed claims that AI’s water usage is high as “totally fake”, but he did acknowledge that it had been an issue in the past when “we used to do evaporative cooling in data centers.”

“Now that we don’t do that, you see these things on the internet like, ‘Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s 17 gallons of water for each query’ or whatever,” Altman said. “This is completely untrue, totally insane, no connection to reality.”

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