Kimi K2.5 Environmental Impact
Strongest Chinese model — competes with GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Architecture
- Dense Transformer with Agent Swarm
- Context
- 2,000,000 tokens
- Provider
- Moonshot AI
Energy per query
1.5 Wh
5x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.83 g
China grid (550 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
6 mL
~182 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Moonshot AI Cloud (China)
Provider
Moonshot AI
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
550 g CO2/kWh (30% renewable)
How does Kimi K2.5 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Kimi K2.5 is the strongest Chinese model as of early 2026, competing with GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.5. At ~1.5 Wh per standard query, it features Agent Swarm (multi-agent collaboration), Visual Coding, and best-in-class long document processing with its 2M token context. Agent Swarm mode consumes significantly more energy.
Power Source & Carbon
Runs on Chinese data centre infrastructure (550 g CO2/kWh average).
About Kimi K2.5
Kimi K2.5 is a text and chat model from Moonshot AI, released in January 27, 2026. Strongest Chinese model — competes with GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.5. Each query uses 1.5 Wh of energy and produces 0.83 g of CO₂. That's 5x 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 — Moonshot AI has not published official energy data for Kimi K2.5. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
What does your Kimi K2.5 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Kimi K2.5.
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How much energy does Kimi K2.5 use per query?
Each Kimi K2.5 query consumes approximately 1.5 Wh of energy. This is 5x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Kimi K2.5's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Moonshot AI Cloud (China), each query produces approximately 0.83 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 Kimi K2.5 use?
Each query consumes approximately 6 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Kimi K2.5 compare to a Google search?
A Kimi K2.5 query uses 5x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Kimi K2.5 uses 1.5 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Dense Transformer with Agent Swarm
Context window
2,000,000 tokens
Release date
2026-01-27
Open source
No
Training data cutoff
2025-12