Artificial intelligence technology behind ChatGPT was built in Iowa – with a lot of water

A Microsoft data centre is seen near Interstate 35 in West Des Moines, Iowa. Microsoft has been amassing a cluster of data centres to power its cloud computing services for more than a decade. Its fourth and fifth data centres in the city are due to open later this year. — AP

DES MOINES, Iowa: The cost of building an artificial intelligence product like ChatGPT can be hard to measure.

But one thing Microsoft-backed OpenAI needed for its technology was plenty of water, pulled from the watershed of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers in central Iowa to cool a powerful supercomputer as it helped teach its AI systems how to mimic human writing.