GLM-4 Environmental Impact
China's leading open-source bilingual model family
- Architecture
- General Language Model (autoregressive)
- Context
- 128,000 tokens
- Provider
- Zhipu AI
Energy per query
0.90 Wh
3x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.50 g
China grid (550 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
3 mL
~303 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Zhipu AI Cloud (China)
Provider
Zhipu AI
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
550 g CO2/kWh (30% renewable)
How does GLM-4 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
GLM-4 is a competitive bilingual (Chinese/English) model at ~0.9 Wh per query. The open-source ChatGLM series has been widely deployed in Chinese enterprises and research institutions.
Power Source & Carbon
Available both as open-source (self-hosted) and via Zhipu's API running on Chinese data centres.
Water Usage
At ~3.3 mL per query when using the hosted API. Self-hosted deployments vary by location.
About GLM-4
GLM-4 is an open-source text and chat model from Zhipu AI, released in January 16, 2024, that runs well below the category average for energy consumption at 0.90 Wh per query. Because its weights are publicly available, it can be self-hosted on any infrastructure — meaning its carbon footprint depends entirely on where and how you choose to run it. It china's leading open-source bilingual model family.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Zhipu AI has not published official energy data for GLM-4. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
Key Insights
Zhipu AI GLM Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your GLM-4 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use GLM-4.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does GLM-4 use per query?
Each GLM-4 query consumes approximately 0.90 Wh of energy. This is 3x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is GLM-4's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Zhipu AI Cloud (China), each query produces approximately 0.50 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 GLM-4 use?
Each query consumes approximately 3 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does GLM-4 compare to a Google search?
A GLM-4 query uses 3x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while GLM-4 uses 0.90 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
General Language Model (autoregressive)
Context window
128,000 tokens
Release date
2024-01-16
Open source
Yes
Training data cutoff
2024-01