Code Assistant

GitHub Copilot Environmental Impact

Q: What is GitHub Copilot's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of its inference location (Azure US (primarily East)), each GitHub Copilot query produces approximately 1g of CO2.

Q: How does GitHub Copilot compare to a Google search?

A GitHub Copilot query uses 5x more than a traditional Google search in terms of energy consumption. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while GitHub Copilot uses 1.5 Wh per query.

Q: How much water does GitHub Copilot use?

Each GitHub Copilot query consumes approximately 10 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

StandardEstimated

AI coding assistant powered by GPT-4 class models

Architecture: Transformer (GPT-4 class, decoder-only)
Provider: GitHub / OpenAI

1.5 Wh

Energy per query

1.0 g

CO₂ per query

10 mL

Water per query

5x more than

vs Google search

Energy per query

1.5 Wh

5x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)

CO2 per query

1.0 g

US East (Virginia) grid (450 gCO₂/kWh)

Water per query

10 mL

~100 queries to fill 1 litre

Processing location

Azure US (primarily East)

Provider

GitHub / OpenAI

How does GitHub Copilot compare?

Ranked #72 of 152 models by energy per query

View full comparison

Detailed Breakdown

Energy Consumption

GitHub Copilot consumes approximately 1.5 Wh per code completion or suggestion. It uses GPT-4 class models under the hood. Unlike chat queries, Copilot makes frequent short requests as you type — a typical coding session might trigger dozens of completions per hour, adding up to significant cumulative energy use for heavy users.

arXiv — Green My LLM: Energy consumption of code assistants (2024)

Power Source & Carbon

GitHub Copilot runs on Microsoft Azure, primarily in US data centers. GitHub does not offer region-level control for standard users. For enterprise customers, data residency is available in the EU, Australia, US, and Japan, which may route inference to different grid regions with varying carbon intensity.

GitHub Community — Copilot region discussion GitHub Enterprise Data Residency

Water Usage

At approximately 10 mL per completion, individual requests are modest. However, active developers may trigger 50-100+ completions per hour, consuming 500 mL to 1 liter of water per hour of active coding with Copilot enabled.

arXiv — Green My LLM: Energy consumption of code assistants (2024)

About GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is a code assistant model from GitHub / OpenAI, released in June 21, 2022. AI coding assistant powered by GPT-4 class models. Each query uses 1.5 Wh of energy and produces 1.0 g of CO₂. That's 5x the energy of a Google search — reflecting the computational demands of code assistant.

These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — GitHub / OpenAI has not published official energy data for GitHub Copilot. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.

GitHub Copilot in Context

150 MWh

estimated daily

At global scale

With an estimated 10M+ daily users averaging 10 queries each, GitHub Copilot consumes roughly 150 MWh of electricity per day — enough to power 5000 homes.

13.7 kWh

per year

Your yearly GitHub Copilot footprint

At 25 queries per day, your annual GitHub Copilot usage consumes 13.7 kWh — roughly what a fridge uses in a month. That produces 9.1 kg of CO₂.

What does your GitHub Copilot usage cost the planet?

Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use GitHub Copilot.

Calculate My Compute

Frequently Asked Questions

How much energy does GitHub Copilot use per query?

Each GitHub Copilot query consumes approximately 1.5 Wh of energy. This is 5x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).

What is GitHub Copilot's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of Azure US (primarily East), each query produces approximately 1.0 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 450 g CO2/kWh with 25% renewable energy.

How much water does GitHub Copilot use?

Each query consumes approximately 10 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

How does GitHub Copilot compare to a Google search?

A GitHub Copilot query uses 5x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while GitHub Copilot uses 1.5 Wh.