How much electricity does AI consume?

One of those big questions! How many windmill farms does it take or is it time for more nuclear power? 😊

"AI's energy consumption, particularly during training, is difficult to quantify due to lack of transparency from companies, but estimates suggest it could reach significant levels, potentially comprising a substantial portion of global electricity consumption by 2027."

"... One important factor we can identify is the difference between training a model for the first time and deploying it to users. Training, in particular, is extremely energy intensive, consuming much more electricity than traditional data center activities. Training a large language model like GPT-3, for example, is estimated to use just under 1,300 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity; about as much power as consumed annually by 130 US homes. To put that in context, streaming an hour of Netflix requires around 0.8 kWh (0.0008 MWh) of electricity. That means you’d have to watch 1,625,000 hours to consume the same amount of power it takes to train GPT-3. ...

ran tests on 88 different models spanning a range of use cases, from answering questions to identifying objects and generating images. In each case, they ran the task 1,000 times and estimated the energy cost. Most tasks they tested use a small amount of energy, like 0.002 kWh to classify written samples and 0.047 kWh to generate text. If we use our hour of Netflix streaming as a comparison, these are equivalent to the energy consumed watching nine seconds or 3.5 minutes, respectively. (Remember: that’s the cost to perform each task 1,000 times.) The figures were notably larger for image-generation models, which used on average 2.907 kWh per 1,000 inferences. As the paper notes, the average smartphone uses 0.012 kWh to charge — so generating one image using AI can use almost as much energy as charging your smartphone. ...

By combining this data, ... calculates that by 2027 the AI sector could consume between 85 to 134 terawatt hours each year. That’s about the same as the annual energy demand of ... country, the Netherlands. ..."

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How much electricity does AI consume? It’s not easy to calculate the watts and joules that go into a single Balenciaga pope. But we’re not completely in the dark about the true energy cost of AI.