GPT-4 Turbo Environmental Impact
OpenAI's optimised GPT-4 variant, still widely deployed
- Architecture
- Multimodal Transformer (decoder-only)
- Context
- 128,000 tokens
- Provider
- OpenAI
Energy per query
0.50 Wh
2x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.22 g
US East (Virginia) grid (450 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
2 mL
~556 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Azure US East / Sweden
Provider
OpenAI
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
450 g CO2/kWh (25% renewable)
How does GPT-4 Turbo compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
GPT-4 Turbo consumes approximately 0.5 Wh per short query — slightly more than GPT-4o, which was optimised as its successor. It remains widely used in production systems due to its established reliability and 128K context window.
Power Source & Carbon
Runs on Microsoft Azure infrastructure. Same deployment regions as other OpenAI models.
Water Usage
At ~1.8 mL per query, GPT-4 Turbo has a similar water footprint to GPT-4o.
About GPT-4 Turbo
GPT-4 Turbo is a text and chat model from OpenAI, released in April 9, 2024. OpenAI's optimised GPT-4 variant, still widely deployed. Each query uses 0.50 Wh of energy and produces 0.22 g of CO₂. That's about 1.7x what a Google search consumes.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — OpenAI has not published official energy data for GPT-4 Turbo. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
GPT-4 Turbo in Context
Your yearly GPT-4 Turbo footprint
At 25 queries per day, your annual GPT-4 Turbo usage consumes 4.6 kWh — comparable to running a LED light bulb for a month. That produces 2.0 kg of CO₂.
Key Insights
OpenAI GPT Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your GPT-4 Turbo usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use GPT-4 Turbo.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does GPT-4 Turbo use per query?
Each GPT-4 Turbo query consumes approximately 0.50 Wh of energy. This is 2x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is GPT-4 Turbo's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Azure US East / Sweden, each query produces approximately 0.22 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 GPT-4 Turbo use?
Each query consumes approximately 2 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does GPT-4 Turbo compare to a Google search?
A GPT-4 Turbo query uses 2x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while GPT-4 Turbo uses 0.50 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Multimodal Transformer (decoder-only)
Context window
128,000 tokens
Release date
2024-04-09
Open source
No
Training data cutoff
2023-12