ERNIE 5.0 Environmental Impact
Baidu's natively omni-modal model — stronger reasoning and tool use
- Architecture
- Omni-modal Transformer
- Context
- 128,000 tokens
- Provider
- Baidu
Energy per query
1.1 Wh
4x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.61 g
China grid (550 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
4 mL
~244 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Baidu Cloud (China)
Provider
Baidu
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
550 g CO2/kWh (30% renewable)
How does ERNIE 5.0 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
ERNIE 5.0 is Baidu's natively omni-modal model supporting text, image, audio, and video understanding. At ~1.1 Wh per text query, it features improved reasoning, tool use, and creative output over ERNIE 4.5. Serves hundreds of millions of users via Baidu's ecosystem.
Power Source & Carbon
Runs on Baidu's Kunlun AI chips in Chinese data centres (550 g CO2/kWh).
About ERNIE 5.0
ERNIE 5.0 is a text and chat model from Baidu, released in November 15, 2025. Baidu's natively omni-modal model — stronger reasoning and tool use. Each query uses 1.1 Wh of energy and produces 0.61 g of CO₂. That's about 3.7x what a Google search consumes.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Baidu has not published official energy data for ERNIE 5.0. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
What does your ERNIE 5.0 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use ERNIE 5.0.
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How much energy does ERNIE 5.0 use per query?
Each ERNIE 5.0 query consumes approximately 1.1 Wh of energy. This is 4x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is ERNIE 5.0's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Baidu Cloud (China), each query produces approximately 0.61 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 550 g CO2/kWh with 30% renewable energy.
How much water does ERNIE 5.0 use?
Each query consumes approximately 4 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does ERNIE 5.0 compare to a Google search?
A ERNIE 5.0 query uses 4x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while ERNIE 5.0 uses 1.1 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Omni-modal Transformer
Context window
128,000 tokens
Release date
2025-11-15
Open source
No
Training data cutoff
2025-10