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# GPT-4o's inference uses an estimated 1.3–1.6 million kilolitres of water a year
- URL: https://aiadoption.org/data/chatgpt-water-use/
- Published: 2026-10-19T14:40:36.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-21T06:01:25.000Z
- Description: GPT-4o's inference uses an estimated 1.33 to 1.58 million kilolitres of water a year. The upper estimate exceeds the annual drinking water of 1.2 million people.
- Author: Manu
- Tags: Data, AI Infrastructure, Large Language Models, #chart, #ai-index-2026, #hub-infrastructure

1.58M kL

upper estimate of GPT-4o's annual inference water use, more than the drinking water of 1.2 million people

GPT-4o inference (upper)1.58M kL

Drinking water, 1.2M people1.31M kL

500 Olympic pools1.25M kL

## What the chart shows

Answering queries with GPT-4o consumes an estimated 1.33 to 1.58 million kilolitres of water a year.

At the high end that is more than the annual drinking water of 1.2 million people (1.31 million kL), or about 630 Olympic swimming pools.

## Key numbers

| Measure                                   | Value        |
| ----------------------------------------- | ------------ |
| GPT-4o inference, upper estimate          | 1,579,680 kL |
| GPT-4o inference, lower estimate          | 1,334,991 kL |
| Annual drinking water, 1.2 million people | 1,314,000 kL |
| 500 Olympic pools                         | 1,250,000 kL |

## How to read it

- AI Index estimates; water use depends heavily on data centre location, cooling method and season.
- 1 kilolitre = 1,000 litres; an Olympic swimming pool holds about 2,500 kL.

**Source:** [AI Index](https://aiadoption.org/sources/#ai-index), 2025, via the AI Index Report 2026 (Stanford HAI), figure 1.4.8: *Annual water consumption: GPT-4o vs. real-world baselines*. Chart and text by AI Adoption.  
Numbers checked against the published data on 19 October 2026.  
[Download the data (CSV)](https://charts.aiadoption.org/ai-index/csv/chatgpt-water-use.csv?ref=aiadoption.org) · [Cite this chart](#source)