this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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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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[–] Melonpoly@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago (9 children)

It takes less energy to dry a full load of clothes

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 6 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

40 watt-hours? That's the energy usage of a very small laptop.

[–] Dremor@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Imagine if you had to empty your whole laptop battery every time you had to generate a 20 lines response that may not even be correct... That'll end up consuming power really fast.

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