The University of Rhode Island’s AI lab estimates that GPT-5 averages just over 18 Wh per query, so putting all of ChatGPT’s reported 2.5 billion requests a day through the model could see energy usage as high as 45 GWh.
A daily energy use of 45 GWh is enormous. A typical modern nuclear power plant produces between 1 and 1.6 GW of electricity per reactor per hour, so data centers running OpenAI’s GPT-5 at 18 Wh per query could require the power equivalent of two to three nuclear power reactors, an amount that could be enough to power a small country.
40Wh or 18Wh which is it?
That’s my old gaming PC running a game for 2min42sec-6minutes … Roughly.
they vibe calculated it.
Doesn’t matter, their audience isn’t intetested in accuracy they only want more things to feel outraged about