How Much Energy Does ONE ChatGPT Message REALLY Use?

The news stories are everywhere about the energy consumption of AI and ChatGPT. But how much energy does a single ChatGPT message use for context? We find out... Research Links (a lot of them for this one!): Epoch AI – How much energy does ChatGPT use? (FANTASTIC article & data): https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-use Euronews – Energy consumption of AI chatbots compared to Google search: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/17/chatgpt-deepseek-co-how-much-energy-do-ai-powered-chatbots-consume RW Digital – Energy costs of Google search vs. ChatGPT: https://www.rwdigital.ca/blog/how-much-energy-do-google-search-and-chatgpt-use/ Third Way – AI’s growing energy demands: https://www.thirdway.org/memo/how-ai-uses-energy Tom’s Hardware – Water usage of ChatGPT queries: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/just-five-chatgpt-queries-can-use-16oz-of-water-say-researchers Trust.org – Climate impact of sending emails: https://news.trust.org/item/20191126171236-wwtvc/ ACEEE – Energy usage of clothes dryers: https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2010/data/papers/2206.pdf Yale Environment 360 – AI’s impact on climate and energy emissions: https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions Sustainability by Numbers – AI’s energy demand: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/ai-energy-demand IEA – AI driving electricity demand from data centers: https://www.iea.org/news/ai-is-set-to-drive-surging-electricity-demand-from-data-centres-while-offering-the-potential-to-transform-how-the-energy-sector-works Vox – Rising energy demand from AI technologies: https://www.vox.com/climate/2024/3/28/24111721/climate-ai-tech-energy-demand-rising MIT Sloan – Solutions for AI’s high data center energy costs: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/ai-has-high-data-center-energy-costs-there-are-solutions Forbes – AI pushing towards global energy crisis: https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2024/05/23/ai-is-pushing-the-world-towards-an-energy-crisis OVO Energy – Carbon savings from fewer emails: https://company.ovo.com/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid Gizmodo – AI image generation energy usage: https://gizmodo.com/ai-images-as-much-energy-as-charging-phone-hugging-face-1851065091 Arxiv – Detailed analysis of AI energy consumption: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.16863 Wired – Energy comparison of AI vs. Bitcoin mining: https://wired.me/science/energy/ai-vs-bitcoin-mining-energy Reuters – ChatGPT’s record-setting user growth: https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-sets-record-fastest-growing-user-base-analyst-note-2023-02-01/ BestBrokers – Calculating ChatGPT’s annual electricity consumption: https://www.bestbrokers.com/forex-brokers/ais-power-demand-calculating-chatgpts-electricity-consumption-for-handling-over-78-billion-user-queries-every-year/ ScienceDirect – Environmental footprint of AI technologies: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435123003653 Music by Epidemic Sound.