Sam Altman says he gets why people don't want AI data centers in their backyard

• Sam Altman said on a podcast that he understands the backlash to AI data centers.
• The CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI said data centers should be built away from communities.
• "We should just go put it off in the desert, around no one where no one wants to be," he said.

Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, says he gets why communities don't want AI data centers nearby — and suggested they may be better suited for the desert.

"I understand emotionally why people don't want data centers in their backyard in the same way that I don't really want a nuclear power plant next to my house, even though I know it's a super safe thing," Altman said during an episode of the "Invest Like The Best" podcast released Tuesday.

Data centers, Altman told podcast host Patrick O'Shaughnessy, can be built "kind of anywhere."

"We should just go put it off in the desert, around no one where no one wants to be," Altman said. "This is fine. The AI system is very happy to be there."

An OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider that Altman was making the case that, unlike many other types of economic activity, data centers can operate as effectively in remote locations as anywhere else with the right infrastructure.

Altman's comments come as tech companies, including OpenAI, race to build massive data centers powering artificial intelligence across the United States. Some of the projects have faced fierce backlash from communities concerned about their environmental and economic impacts.

Water use, electricity demand, and noise are among the common concerns raised by opponents of AI data center projects.

During his interview on the podcast, Altman said the industry has made "a lot of progress with innovation on some of the concerns" around data centers, citing advances in cooling technology such as closed-loop systems.

"For example, years ago, we were evaporating water to cool these systems. They did tremendous amounts of water. And now we use these closed-loop systems, and a modern data center uses only as much water as an office building would for the kitchen, the bathrooms, and whatever," he said

"On power, we are moving from energy sources that are burning fossil fuels to systems that are going to be powered by solar, nuclear," Altman said.

Altman explained that the energy that flows through one data center "could power a small city" and added that he's been thinking about organizing field trips to the facilities.

"It is one thing to say, it is another thing to see a photo or a video of, and then it's a whole other thing to just stand up and be like, oh man, this is an unbelievable scale," he said.