Is asking ChatGPT worse than streaming Netflix?
The claim: “One ChatGPT question uses more energy than an hour of Netflix.”
No. The IEA estimated an hour of Netflix in 2019 used about 77 Wh across data centres, networks and your screen. That’s about 230 short questions at OpenAI’s 0.34 Wh, and about 41 even at the highest published figure (1.86 Wh). It’s a rough comparison: the streaming figure is from 2019 and includes your device, while the question figures cover only the data centre.
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.
How big is that?
- One short AI question0.34 WhOpenAI says 0.34 Wh; other published figures differ
- Charging a phone once19 WhUS EPA, about 19 Whabout 56× the line above
- One short AI video clip90 Whabout 90 Wh, measured by Hugging Faceabout 4.7× the line above
- Boiling a litre of water99 Whabout 99 Wh from 15 °C, by Hum’s sums from physicsabout the same as the line above
- A US home for a day28 kWhabout 28 kWh, Epoch AI from US dataabout 283× the line above
- A US home for a year11 MWhabout 10,500 kWh, Epoch AI from US dataabout 375× the line above
- AI in the world’s data centres for a year156 TWhabout 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
- All the world’s data centres for a year485 TWhabout 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 one question with an hour of video, and the two figures count different things.
What nobody knows yet
- The IEA hasn’t updated its streaming figure since 2019.
Sources (6)
- IEA (George Kamiya) Estimated
“streaming a Netflix video in 2019 typically consumed around 0.077 kWh of electricity per hour”
Quote checked on the page, 18 Oct 2026 - OpenAI (Sam Altman; average query, method not published) Company says so
“the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second”
Quote checked on the page, 2 Oct 2026 - MIT Technology Review (one large open model, Llama 3.1 405B) Estimated
“an estimated 6,706 joules total, for each response”
Quote checked on the page, 2 Oct 2026 - IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026) Estimated
“electricity consumption from data centres roughly doubling from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030”
Quote checked on the page, 3 Oct 2026 - Ember, yearly electricity data (CSV, CC BY 4.0) Data row
Data row: France, 2025, electricity demand 480.6 TWh. Demand includes grid losses, so it is close to, not the same as, consumption.
Row checked against the published file, 6 Oct 2026 - IEA, Energy and AI (2025) Estimated
“Data centres accounted for around 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption in 2024, or 415 terawatt-hours (TWh).”
Quote checked on the page, 3 Oct 2026
Hum’s sums
- 6,706 J ÷ 3,600 ≈ 1.86 Wh
- 0.077 kWh = 77 Wh
- 77 Wh ÷ 0.34 Wh ≈ 230 questions
- 77 Wh ÷ 1.86 Wh ≈ 41 questions
Cite this
IEA (George Kamiya), as quoted in Hum, “Is asking ChatGPT worse than streaming Netflix?”, https://humearth.org/q/netflix (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
An hour of Netflix used about as much electricity as 41 to 230 short ChatGPT questions (IEA, 2019; OpenAI and MIT Technology Review figures).