How much resources does a question for AI cost?

(Dan Tri) - Google has for the first time publicly disclosed a technical report on Gemini's energy consumption, revealing the "cost" of artificial intelligence on the environment.

Google has just released its first technical report, lifting the veil on the energy and resource consumption of Gemini, its most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) model.

Accordingly, an average text query (prompt) on Gemini consumes 0.24Wh of electricity, equivalent to one second of operating a household microwave, and about 0.26ml of water, equivalent to 5 drops.

This is the first time a technology giant has publicly disclosed such specific and transparent figures, in a context where the environmental impact of AI is becoming the focus of global debate.

Google has just released the first technical report on the energy and resource consumption of the Gemini model - the company's most powerful AI generation to date (Photo: Getty).

Google's report doesn't stop at the power consumed by the AI ​​chip (custom TPU), but also includes the entire supporting infrastructure.

Specifically, TPU accounts for 58% of total energy, CPU and memory account for 25%, backup equipment accounts for 10%, and data center operating systems such as cooling and power conversion account for 8%.

This shows that operating AI is a huge technological "ecosystem", not simply about the processing power of chips.

Notably, Google says the power consumption for a median prompt has dropped 33x in just one year, thanks to significant model and software optimizations.

This is a clear demonstration of the AI ​​industry's remarkable pace of improvement in reducing energy costs.

In addition to electricity, the amount of water needed to cool the system is also publicly available. The median prompt consumes about 0.26ml of water, which is about 5 drops. While this may seem small, when multiplied by billions of queries per day globally, the total water consumption becomes a significant factor.

In terms of emissions, Google estimates that a prompt generates around 0.03g of CO₂, thanks to the company's use of clean electricity from solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear. However, experts still stress the need for more regular and transparent monitoring of environmental impacts to avoid creating a huge "carbon footprint" hidden behind technological conveniences.

Google also notes that these numbers are just medians. More complex queries, like asking Gemini to summarize dozens of books or run multistep reasoning models, would require significantly more energy and resources. The current report also only includes text prompts, not images or videos , which require much more processing power.

Jeff Dean, Google's chief scientist , reassured users: "People don't need to worry too much about energy or water when using Gemini, because the consumption is equivalent to everyday things you do without even thinking about, like watching a few seconds of TV or drinking a few drops of water."

The Transparency Wave and the Question for Big Tech

Google's move to make data public is seen as a positive signal, demonstrating social responsibility and efforts to build trust with users.

As AI becomes as important an infrastructure as smartphones or the Internet, transparency about energy and environmental costs is increasingly seen as the "new norm" that technology companies must strive for.

Currently, other major competitors such as Microsoft, OpenAI or Meta have not yet given any official figures on energy consumption for each AI prompt.

Google's leadership could put pressure on these companies to be more transparent sooner rather than later, especially as users and environmental groups increasingly question the "true cost" of convenient everyday AI applications.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/cong-nghe/mot-cau-hoi-cho-ai-ton-bao-nhieu-tai-nguyen-20250826082818468.htm