Fig. 01 · The glass
−9,509,142 L/s
98.0068% left
One glass stands for every drop of drinking water we can reach. It is emptying faster than rain refills it, and AI is one of the taps.
Year-to-date · 2026 · global aggregate
Google puts a median Gemini text prompt at 0.26 millilitres of cooling water, about five drops. We model worldwide AI demand from published datacenter energy and water-intensity research, and convert each query into the water and energy it drew. This is a public data desk, not a dashboard. The numbers below tick upward as the network works.
Time left on the world's stored freshwater, after rainfall refills it
34
yrs
107
days
02
hrs
53
min
08
sec
98.0068% of the stored reserve remains · we take out 9,509,142 L more every second than rain and rivers put back · AI is 0.03% of that gap and rising
Natural recharge is already subtracted. The clock counts only the overdraft: groundwater and reservoirs drawn down faster than they refill, at today's pace.
Water used by AI, YTD
4.51 T L
AI prompts served, YTD
75.15 T
Energy, YTD
157.45 B kWh
CO₂, YTD
66.20 B kg
Fig. 02 · Human scale
Water
≈ 1.9B
showers, assuming a 6-minute, 65-litre flow. The global figure, translated.
Method: 65 L per shower
Water
≈ 3.9B
500 mL bottles of drinking water. Enough to refill a mid-sized city's taps for a week.
Method: 0.5 L normalization
Energy
≈ 28M
households powered for a year at 2,000 kWh apiece. Stacked against a mid-sized grid.
Source: IEA residential avg.
Fig. 03 · Your footprint
Anonymous and local. Fill in the numbers, pick your country, then check your impact to unlock your results.
Your results are locked
How much water does your AI habit drink?
Enter your daily usage, choose your country, then hit "Check my impact". Your water, energy and carbon numbers appear here straight away, and your country joins the map below.
Water · L per day, month, year
Energy · kWh
Showers · bottles · CO₂
Where you sit versus a sustainable day
Country still needed
Fig. 04 · Contribution map
Top contributors by water drawn
Volumes reflect anonymized contributor submissions, not true national usage. Projected to a full year.
Fig. 05 · Levers
No moralizing, no donation box. Just the physics of what each action shifts on this ledger.
−38%
Batch your prompts. One longer context beats five short round-trips.
−62%
Swap a video generation for a storyboard. The water delta is the largest single task.
−21%
Route casual queries to a smaller model before escalating to the frontier tier.
0 → 1
Submit your data. Your country appears on the map only after you opt in.
FiveDrops · an open data desk
Modelled estimates · IEA 2024 · CC-BY 4.0