GPT-5 Environmental Impact
OpenAI's next-gen flagship model
- Architecture
- Multimodal Transformer (next-gen)
- Context
- 256,000 tokens
- Provider
- OpenAI
Energy per query
3.5 Wh
12x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
1.5 g
US East (Virginia) grid (450 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
13 mL
~80 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Azure / Multi-cloud
Provider
OpenAI
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
450 g CO2/kWh (25% renewable)
How does GPT-5 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
GPT-5 represents a generational leap from GPT-4, consuming approximately 3.5 Wh per short query. Despite being more capable, improved architecture and inference optimisations kept per-query energy comparable to GPT-4.5. OpenAI expanded to multi-cloud (Azure, AWS, GCP) for this release.
Power Source & Carbon
Runs across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud — OpenAI's first truly multi-cloud model. This allows some region optimisation for carbon efficiency.
Water Usage
At ~12.5 mL per query, reflecting the substantial compute requirements of this frontier model.
About GPT-5
GPT-5 is a text and chat model from OpenAI, released in August 7, 2025. OpenAI's next-gen flagship model. Each query uses 3.5 Wh of energy and produces 1.5 g of CO₂. That's 12x the energy of a Google search — reflecting the computational demands of text and chat.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — OpenAI has not published official energy data for GPT-5. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
GPT-5 in Context
At global scale
With an estimated 10M+ daily users averaging 10 queries each, GPT-5 consumes roughly 350 MWh of electricity per day — enough to power 11667 homes.
Your yearly GPT-5 footprint
At 25 queries per day, your annual GPT-5 usage consumes 31.9 kWh — roughly what a fridge uses in a month. That produces 14.0 kg of CO₂.
OpenAI GPT Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your GPT-5 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use GPT-5.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does GPT-5 use per query?
Each GPT-5 query consumes approximately 3.5 Wh of energy. This is 12x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is GPT-5's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Azure / Multi-cloud, each query produces approximately 1.5 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-5 use?
Each query consumes approximately 13 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does GPT-5 compare to a Google search?
A GPT-5 query uses 12x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while GPT-5 uses 3.5 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Multimodal Transformer (next-gen)
Context window
256,000 tokens
Release date
2025-08-07
Open source
No
Training data cutoff
2025-06