BY JAMEY TUCKER, Consumer Technology Reporter

AI may feel invisible. Just a few keystrokes and a quick reply from a chatbot. But behind the scenes, it’s powered by enormous data centers running 24/7.

Researchers say training a single large language model, like ChatGPT, can use as much electricity as 100 homes use in a year.

Sound made up? It’s not. And it’s not just electricity. Data centers generate heat, and keeping that equipment cool requires a lot of water.

“When it’s being trained, what’s happening is it’s a huge amount of data that’s going in to make it what it is that you interact with,” says Keyona Meeks, an AI Strategist.

After training, every interaction still requires energy.

Keyona Meeks compares it to tiny sparks, multiplied by millions of users. And most of that power?

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