This Tool Calculates your Chatbot’s Electricity Usage

Curious about the electricity used when interacting with an AI model? Hugging Face engineer Julien Delavande wondered the same and created a tool to find the answer.

AI models use energy every time they’re executed. They run on GPUs and specialized chips that require significant power to handle large-scale computational tasks. While it’s challenging to precisely measure power consumption, it’s anticipated that the increasing use of AI technologies will push electricity demand to new levels in the coming years.

Rising Power Demands for AI Highlight Environmental Concerns

The growing need for power to support AI has prompted some companies to adopt environmentally harmful practices. “Tools like Delavande’s highlight this issue and encourage AI users to think twice.”

“Even modest energy savings can add up across millions of queries — the choice of model or output length can have a significant environmental impact,” Delavande and the tool’s co-creators stated.

Delavande’s tool is built to integrate with Chat UI, an open-source front end for models such as Meta’s Llama 3.3 70B and Google’s Gemma 3. The tool calculates the energy usage of messages sent to and from a model in real time, reporting it in Watt-hours or Joules. It also compares the energy consumption of models to that of typical household appliances, like microwaves and LED lights.

Energy Consumption of AI Tasks Compared to Household Appliances

The tool estimates that requesting Llama 3.3 70B to write a standard email consumes around 0.1841 Watt-hours — about the same as running a microwave for 0.12 seconds or using a toaster for 0.02 seconds.

It’s important to note that the tool’s estimates are just that — estimates. Delavande doesn’t claim they are highly precise. However, they do serve as a reminder that everything, including chatbots, comes with a cost.

“Through initiatives like the AI energy score and broader research on AI’s energy impact, we’re advocating for transparency within the open-source community. One day, energy consumption might be as clearly displayed as nutrition labels on food!” Delavande and his co-creators wrote.

Read the original article on: Techcrunch

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