How much energy does the newest version of ChatGPT consume? No one knows for sure, but one thing is certain \u2013 it\u2019s a whole lot. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, hasn\u2019t released any official figures for the large language model\u2019s energy footprints, but academics are working to quantify the energy use for query \u2013 and it\u2019s considerably higher than for previous models.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are no mandates forcing AI companies to disclose their energy use or environmental impact, so most do not offer up those kinds of statistics publicly<\/a>. As of May of this year, 84 percent of all large language model traffic was conducted on AI models with zero environmental disclosures.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt blows my mind that you can buy a car and know how many miles per gallon it consumes, yet we use all these AI tools every day and we have absolutely no efficiency metrics, emissions factors, nothing,\u201d says Sasha Luccioni, climate lead at an AI company called Hugging Face. \u201cIt\u2019s not mandated, it\u2019s not regulatory. Given where we are with the climate crisis, it should be top of the agenda for regulators everywhere,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n Sam Altman, the Chief Executive Officer of OpenAI, has thrown out some figures<\/a> into the public sphere \u2013 saying that ChatGPT consumes 0.34 watt-hours of energy and 0.000085 gallons of water per query \u2013 but has left out key details like what model these numbers refer to, and has offered no backup or corroboration for his statements.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts from outside the OpenAI fold have estimated that ChatGPT-5 may use as much as 20 times more energy as the first version of ChatGPT, and at the very least uses several times more. \u201cA more complex model like GPT-5 consumes more power both during training and during inference. It\u2019s also targeted at long thinking \u2026 I can safely say that it\u2019s going to consume a lot more power than GPT-4,\u201d Rakesh Kumar, a professor at the University of Illinois, recently told<\/a> The Guardian. Kumar\u2019s current work focuses on AI\u2019s energy consumption.\u00a0<\/p>\n While a query to ChatGPT in 2023 would have consumed about 2 watt-hours, researchers at the University of Rhode Island\u2019s AI lab found that ChatGPT-5 can use up to 40 watt-hours of electricity to configure a medium-length response (around 1,000 tokens). On average, they estimate that the model uses slightly over 18 watt-hours for such a response. This places ChatGPT-5 at a higher energy consumption rate than any other of the AI models they track<\/a> save for two: OpenAI\u2019s o3 reasoning model and Deepseek\u2019s R1.<\/p>\n Calculating these estimated energy consumption rates was no easy feat, considering the severe lack of transparency in the sector, in spite of increasing scrutiny. \u201cIt\u2019s more critical than ever to address AI\u2019s true environmental cost,\u201d University of Rhode Island professor Marwan Abdelatti told The Guardian. \u201cWe call on OpenAI and other developers to use this moment to commit to full transparency by publicly disclosing GPT-5\u2019s environmental impact.\u201d<\/p>\n While tech companies consume more and more energy each year to power their AI ambitions, common consumers are suffering the consequences. It\u2019s consumers who are footing the bill<\/a> for skyrocketing energy usage. The New York Times warns<\/a> that \u201celectricity rates for individuals and small businesses could rise sharply as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other technology companies build data centers and expand into the energy business.\u201d Moreover, Silicon Valley’s backtracking<\/a> on climate pledges will directly impact global communities, whether or not they ever use AI.<\/p>\n “We are witnessing a massive transfer of wealth from residential utility customers to large corporations\u2014data centers and large utilities and their corporate parents, which profit from building additional energy infrastructure,” Maryland People’s Counsel David Lapp recently told Business Insider. <\/p>\n “Utility regulation is failing to protect residential customers, contributing to an energy affordability crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com\u00a0<\/p>\n More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How much energy does the newest version of ChatGPT consume? 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