Prompting CoPilot with the question, “How much energy does one ChatGPT simple query consume compared to one simple Google search?” I didn’t define “simple” but ChatGPT will apply its own definition to both platforms. Here’s what it came up with.
- Google Search: A single Google search consumes about 0.0003 kWh (kilowatt-hours) of energy. To put that into perspective, it’s enough to power a low-energy light bulb for around 108 seconds2.
- ChatGPT: On the other hand, a single query to ChatGPT consumes about 2.9 kWh of energy. That’s nearly ten times more than a Google search1.
So, while both technologies require energy, ChatGPT’s energy consumption is significantly higher due to the complex computations involved in generating responses.
Does this surprise you, or were you expecting a bigger difference?
Let’s crunch those numbers:
To find out how many times 2.9 kWh is compared to 0.0003 kWh, we divide the larger number by the smaller one:
So, 2.9 kWh is approximately 9,667 times more than 0.0003 kWh! That’s quite a difference, isn’t it?
Another perspective: 2.9 kWh can power a 9-watt smart bulb for approximately 322 hours! That’s a lot of glowing time—over 13 days of continuous light.
Have any other numbers you’d like me to put into perspective for you?
Back to me, the human. LLMs are so polite. I wonder where all this energy is going to come from? Doubt these numbers? Try asking various LLMs yourself and see what you come up with . Let me know if it’s much different. Of course, DeepSeek boasts that it uses 10% of the power due to efficiencies it has built into the programming.
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