Did you know New Study Shows ChatGPT Doesn’t Use as Much Energy as Most People Assume
According to a new study from Epoch AI,
ChatGPT doesn't consume as much power as many people think. The energy
ChatGPT consumes depends on how it is being used and what model of
ChatGPT is answering the queries. The estimates from most sources say
that answering one question with ChatGPT requires 3 watt-hours of power
which is 10 times more than what it takes for Google search to answer
one question. But Epoch AI says
that ChatGPT using 3 watt-hours of power for one query is too high and
OpenAI’s GPT-4 model only takes 0.3 watt-hours to complete one query
which is even less than the power used by household appliances.
The
environmental challenges with AI’s energy consumption have become a
heated topic because AI companies are continuously expanding their
infrastructures. Recently, about 100 organizations have signed an open
letter which is urging the industry to ensure that new AI data centers
which are being built do not harm the environment. So the industries are
asked to rely on non-renewable energy sources.
The researcher
on the study, Joshua You, said that there is a lot of discourse about
how much energy is going to be used in the future but there hasn't been
conversations which accurately portray AIs energy consumption right now.
He said that AI using 3 watt-hours per query seems too high and it was
based on some of his older research and rough calculations. OpenAI
hasn’t shared how much its models use energy per query but You says that
0.3 watt-hour seems like an accurate figure. The analysis hasn't
calculated the extra energy used by ChatGPT like for processing longer
inputs or image generation.
AI is getting more advanced and it is going to require more energy for handling complex tasks in the future. By 2030, it is predicted that training cutting-edge AI models will require 8 GW of energy which is equal to eight nuclear reactors. Joshua You says that people who are concerned about AI’s energy footprint should stop using AI models like ChatGPT or opt for smaller models like GPT-4o-mini.
