How ChatGPT Became a "Major Power Consumer"?

That intelligent little friend at the center of conversations, ChatGPT, is actually a super "major power consumer"! Recently, there's been a shocking revelation: To answer our approximately 200 million questions daily, ChatGPT might be consuming over 500,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Imagine, this is nearly 17,000 times more than the daily electricity usage of an average American household! Yes, you heard it right, it's that exaggerated.

The everyday appliances that run day and night in a common household collectively use about 29 kilowatt-hours a day. ChatGPT, on the other hand, consumes a daily electricity amount that is 17,000 times what our household appliances use! This figure might seem a bit surreal, right? But this is the reality in the world of AI, where the electricity consumption is astonishingly high.

Image sourced from the internet

Moreover, as we become increasingly reliant on generative AI technology, for instance, if Google were to use this technology in every search, it might end up using about 29 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in a year—enough to power countries like Kenya, Guatemala, and Croatia for an entire year!

Alex de Vries, a data scientist for the Dutch National Bank, even made a rough estimate in a journal article, suggesting that by 2027, the entire AI industry could consume between 85 to 134 terawatt-hours (a billion times a kilowatt-hour) annually. The electricity consumption of the AI we use for chatting could potentially account for half a percent of the global electricity consumption by 2027. This number might seem small, but it's actually quite significant.

To put it in perspective, some of the world's highest electricity-consuming businesses pale in comparison. Samsung uses close to 23 terawatt-hours, while tech giants like Google use just over 12 terawatt-hours, and Microsoft uses slightly more than 10 terawatt-hours annually to maintain their data centers, networks, and user devices.

This inevitably leads us to ponder, shouldn't the energy consumption behind our reliance and development of AI also become a concern for us? After all, the resources on this planet are limited, and while we enjoy the conveniences technology brings us, we must not forget about environmental protection.

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