How PWW is made: AI use and its water cost

Prestige World Wardrobe is built and run with help from AI tools, including Base44 (the platform this site runs on) and ChatGPT (a research and drafting aid). Every claim published here is checked against a primary source before it goes live — AI accelerates the work; it doesn't replace the judgment.

I'm aware AI has a water footprint. Training large models and cooling the data centers that run them consumes fresh water: a widely cited study from UC Riverside estimated that training GPT-3 in Microsoft's U.S. data centers could directly evaporate around 700,000 liters of clean freshwater, and projected global AI demand at 4.2–6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal by 2027 (Li et al., Making AI Less ‘Thirsty’). A 2025 UK government report reached a similar conclusion, finding that AI's growth is driving a significant, often underestimated increase in water consumption, primarily for cooling (UK Dept. for Science, Innovation & Technology).

That matters to me because water runs through everything PWW covers. It would be strange to interrogate the fashion industry's water use and ignore the water cost of my own tools.

One honesty note on my own platform: Base44, like most small software companies, does not publish its own water or energy reporting that I could find. Its physical footprint lives in the third-party cloud data centers that run it. I'd rather say that plainly than imply a disclosure exists where I haven't seen one.

So here is my commitment. I treat AI as a transitional tool, not a permanent fixture. I aim to keep my use proportionate, to prefer models and providers that publish their water data and cool their data centers less water-intensively where that information is visible — Google, for example, reports its data center water use annually, uses air cooling or recycled water in some high-risk locations, and aims to replenish more freshwater than it consumes by 2030 (Google water stewardship) — and to shift as better options emerge.

And the reason I'm willing to use it at all: the work it accelerates — this site's reporting on fashion's water footprint, on regenerative fibers that build soil and help it hold water, on getting people into fewer, better garments — is aimed at helping the water cycle, not just the wardrobe. I don't claim the ledger balances. I claim the direction is deliberate, and I'll keep this disclosure updated as the tools and their footprints change.