‘Training A Human Takes 20 Years Of Food’: Sam Altman On How Much Power AI Consumes

Last Updated:February 22, 2026, 01:10 IST

Altman says debates on AI power use overlook that human intelligence also requires years of life, education and resources to develop.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this week compared human development to artificial intelligence training, arguing that discussions around the energy consumed by AI models often overlook the resources required to educate and nurture people.

Altman said concerns about the power required to train advanced AI systems should be viewed in a broader context of how societies invest energy and resources in building human intelligence.

“People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model. But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes about 20 years of life — and all the food you consume during that time — before you become smart," the OpenAI CEO told The Indian Express this week.

Altman, who was in India for the AI Impact Summit, said the country is currently leading the world in AI adoption and is poised to become one of the largest markets for the technology. He added that India is not just participating in the artificial intelligence revolution but helping lead it.

He also said his study of history suggests that concentrating AI power in the hands of a single company or country, even in the name of safety, would be a “disastrously bad" thing to do.

“I do share the concern about concentration of AI. Our stance is that the only path forward is to heavily democratise AI and to put these tools in the hands of people, even if it comes with some downsides, even if it means that society has got to wrestle with some big challenges," he said at a select briefing on the sidelines of the summit.

OpenAI, he said, pioneered what it calls an “iterative deployment" strategy, allowing people to become familiar with AI systems and use them even when they are imperfect or still evolving.

“And it doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible in how we do it, doesn’t mean that we don’t start conservatively, but it does mean we empower people to do things with the technology that we ourselves might not like. It means that we try to encourage a robust ecosystem being built around the world," he said.

“It means that we take the trade-off of empowering people and accepting that society is going to have to wrestle with a new thing, rather than try to hold on to all the power ourselves and say we can guarantee this or that outcome," he added.

News world ‘Training A Human Takes 20 Years Of Food’: Sam Altman On How Much Power AI Consumes

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