Unquenchable Thirst: OpenAI's Drinking Water Usage and How Trinity Can Help

The environmental impact of using generative AI is incomprehensible to the general public. In 2025 alone, the data centers used to run OpenAI tools were responsible for 32.6 - 79.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. According to OpenAI engineers, clean drinking water must be used to cool the data servers in order to prevent "mineral build-up" in the cooling systems. Data centers are literally using one of humanity's most precious and scarce resources to cool their servers, and it is dwindling by the day. OpenAI's projected water usage could hit 6.6 billion m³ by 2027, which is equivalent to 13.2 billion 500ml water bottles.

Although this issue seems out of our hands, students can do their part by helping ban ChatGPT from the Trinity College Dublin Wi-Fi. ChatGPT is the most widely-used generative AI model, thus, blocking access would drastically reduce students' contribution to this ever growing problem. You can help do your part by signing our petition!