Sam Altman posted this to his blog:
"People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes. It also uses about 0.000085 gallons of water; roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon."
https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity
In December 2024 OpenAI announced that they do around 1 billion queries per day.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24313097/chatgpt-300-million-weekly-users
That means ChatGPT is using 340-400MWh of energy per day. That's not as bad as I thought to be honest (if you believe Altman). Old mate doesn't mention the data used to train/infer the models though.
decryption
npub187…ueh70
2025-06-11 00:00:31 UTC
Author Public Key
npub187d524jd9mwqnv0jp0w4esmym9n6k8rgx7x6uav3txd8alszrzqsaueh70Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-06-11 00:00:31 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "5128b1aa2759d5f0cacb68202d736f22cbb37e5b013361a3d1607c19561038be",
"pubkey": "3f9b45564d2edc09b1f20bdd5cc364d967ab1c68378dae7591599a7efe021881",
"created_at": 1749600031,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://aus.social/@decryption/114661787632877171",
"web"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://aus.social/users/decryption/statuses/114661787632877171",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
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],
[
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"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://aus.social/users/decryption/statuses/114661787632877171",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
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],
"content": "Sam Altman posted this to his blog:\n\n\"People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes. It also uses about 0.000085 gallons of water; roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.\"\n\nhttps://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity\n\nIn December 2024 OpenAI announced that they do around 1 billion queries per day.\n\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24313097/chatgpt-300-million-weekly-users\n\nThat means ChatGPT is using 340-400MWh of energy per day. That's not as bad as I thought to be honest (if you believe Altman). Old mate doesn't mention the data used to train/infer the models though.",
"sig": "647f196309dd429479c0deeaa6672a55d8e34eabd250d8ecdb83e3aa190636a3509df1ca3ed4c955a1cfada2fb7852ee9cd262dff9146ec1590c50b4b4997691"
}