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Comparisons and myths

Does asking ChatGPT use 10 times more energy than a Google search?

The claim: “Asking ChatGPT uses 10 times the energy of a Google search.”

PARTLY Hum’s verdict

Out of date. The 10× came from the IEA’s 2024 report: 2.9 Wh for a ChatGPT request against 0.3 Wh for a Google search. The ChatGPT number traces back to an estimate of around 3 Wh by de Vries (2023), and the search number is Google’s own, from 2009. Newer figures for a short question are about ten times lower: Epoch AI estimates roughly 0.3 Wh and OpenAI says 0.34 Wh. So on today’s figures they’re roughly level, though nobody has published what a search uses now.

The bigger pictureAll the world’s data centres, of which AI is one part, used about 485 TWh in 2025. That’s about as much electricity as France uses in a year, and around 1.5% of the world’s. The IEA expects it to roughly double by 2030.

Published figures, measured different ways (not comparable)
  • 0.24 Wh Google, median Gemini prompt: counts idle machines and cooling (company figure)
  • 0.34 Wh OpenAI, average ChatGPT question: method not published (company figure)
  • 1.86 Wh One large open model, MIT Technology Review: one model, estimated by the magazine
  • 2.9 Wh The figure behind “10×” (IEA 2024, from de Vries 2023): an early estimate

Hollow dots are the companies’ own figures. Unit: Wh per short text question.

How big is that?
  1. One short AI question0.34 Wh
    OpenAI says 0.34 Wh; other published figures differ
  2. Charging a phone once19 Wh
    US EPA, about 19 Whabout 56× the line above
  3. One short AI video clip90 Wh
    about 90 Wh, measured by Hugging Faceabout 4.7× the line above
  4. Boiling a litre of water99 Wh
    about 99 Wh from 15 °C, by Hum’s sums from physicsabout the same as the line above
  5. A US home for a day28 kWh
    about 28 kWh, Epoch AI from US dataabout 283× the line above
  6. A US home for a year11 MWh
    about 10,500 kWh, Epoch AI from US dataabout 375× the line above
  7. AI in the world’s data centres for a year156 TWh
    about 156 TWh by Hum’s sums: the middle of the US share of AI, 26.5 to 38%, used as a world estimateabout 14.9 million times the line above
  8. All the world’s data centres for a year485 TWh
    about 485 TWh in 2025, IEAabout 3.1× the line above

The dots sit on a log scale: each step to the right is ten times bigger. It’s the only way a phone charge and all the world’s data centres fit on one line.

Why the claim misleads

It compares an early estimate with a figure from 2009. Both have been replaced or not updated since.

What nobody knows yet
  • Google hasn’t published what a search uses today, with or without AI Overviews.
Sources (11)

Hum’s sums

  • 6,706 J ÷ 3,600 ≈ 1.86 Wh
  • 0.0003 kWh = 0.3 Wh
  • 2.9 Wh ÷ 0.3 Wh ≈ 9.7, which became “10 times”
Cite this

IEA, Electricity 2024, as quoted in Hum, “Does asking ChatGPT use 10 times more energy than a Google search?”, https://humearth.org/q/google-search (quote checked 18 Oct 2026).

Cite the original source first; Hum is where you found it.

What do Wh, kWh and TWh mean?

Wh is a watt-hour: a 1-watt light left on for an hour. 1 kWh = 1,000 Wh, and 1 TWh = 1 billion kWh. Hum compares each number with something everyday so you don’t need the units.

Send this answer

“ChatGPT uses 10× a Google search” is out of date: newer figures put a short question at roughly 0.3 Wh, level with Google’s 2009 search figure.

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