Each ChatGPT reply consumes an average of 2.5 Wh of electricity.

According to the New Yorker, to meet the 200 million requests from users, OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot is using more than half a million kWh of electricity every day, 17,241 times more than the average American family (each family uses about 29 kWh/day).

This is a worrying thing and we need to prepare for the future, when Generative AI - Artificial Intelligence, becomes more and more popular and widely applied.

A study by Alex de Vries, a data scientist at the Dutch National Bank, found that new AI devices will consume as much electricity as the Netherlands or countries like Sweden and Argentina by 2027.

Assuming Google also integrates Generative AI into every search query, the electricity consumption would reach about 29 billion kWh per year, more than the total consumption of countries like Kenya, Guatemala, and Croatia during the same period.

Currently, it is difficult to estimate the amount of electricity consumed by the AI ​​industry because the large-scale AI models being run and Big Tech do not accurately disclose their energy usage.

According to Alex de Vries, the entire AI sector will consume between 85 and 134 TWh (1 terawatt = 1 billion kilowatts) per year by 2027, accounting for about half of global electricity consumption.

According to a report from Consumer Energy Solutions, the world's largest technology corporations are the largest users of electricity in the world. Specifically, Samsung uses nearly 23 TWh, Google more than 12 TWh, and Microsoft about 10 TWh to operate data centers, networks, and user devices.

In the future, the AI ​​industry will greatly affect energy security as well as indirectly have negative impacts on the environment if there is no specific plan or solution.