from Hacker News

How Much Energy Does AI Use? The People Who Know Aren't Saying

by beardyw on 6/19/25, 10:46 AM with 3 comments

• by jqpabc123 on 6/19/25, 12:03 PM

  They will give us the real cost later. But my guess is --- whatever the market will bear.

• by incomingpain on 6/19/25, 11:06 AM

  If running at home on a beefy video game setup, it's ~200watts or probably in the area of $100/year.

  But you're not using it at full blast 24x7 most likely. You could be servicing a ton of people on that $100.

  Now the big cloud AI will be using more power than that, and also have engineers for better efficiency. More efficient AI cards will be used. When chatgpt charges $20/month. They are covering all the electrical costs for sure.

• by bell-cot on 6/19/25, 11:10 AM

  Does the number actually matter? The richest / most powerful / most ruthless 0.00001% are hot for massive ramp-ups of AI. "Checks and balances" have gone the way of the 8-track tape.

  (Yeah, I get that real numbers would really excite the folks whose on-line creds or incomes rely on them denouncing Bad Things. But without any power to change things - it's kinda like a bunch of 3rd-class passengers on the Titanic chanting "slow down, slow down". 100% feel-good, zero lives saved.)