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ChatGPT 5 power consumption could be as much as eight times higher than GPT 4 — research institute estimates medium-sized GPT-5 response can consume up to 40 watt-hours of electricity (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 3 days ago by homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The University of Rhode Island's AI lab estimates that GPT-5 averages just over 18 Wh per query, so putting all of ChatGPT's reported 2.5 billion requests a day through the model could see energy usage as high as 45 GWh.

A daily energy use of 45 GWh is enormous. A typical modern nuclear power plant produces between 1 and 1.6 GW of electricity per reactor per hour, so data centers running OpenAI's GPT-5 at 18 Wh per query could require the power equivalent of two to three nuclear power reactors, an amount that could be enough to power a small country.

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[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

That doesn't seem right. By my calculations it should be like 5¢. Can you show your work?

Edit: didn't read. You said "per thousand requests."

[-] MangoCats@feddit.it 1 points 20 hours ago

Depends on your electric rates, of course. The gotcha in this statement is "per thousand requests" which cranks up the power usage from 40 watt-hours to 40 kilowatt hours. Say you've got "affordable" electricity at 12.5 cents per kilowatt hour: 40 * .125 = 5.

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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