LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision Environmental Impact
Open-source multimodal model with image understanding
- Architecture
- Vision-Language Transformer (decoder-only)
- Parameters
- 11B
- Context
- 128,000 tokens
- Provider
- Meta
Energy per query
0.50 Wh
2x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.20 g
Global Average grid (475 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
1 mL
~769 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Self-hosted (varies)
Provider
Meta
Category
Multimodal
Grid carbon intensity
475 g CO2/kWh (27% renewable)
How does LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision adds image understanding to the LLaMA family at ~0.5 Wh per query. Processing images requires additional compute for the vision encoder, adding roughly 60% overhead compared to text-only queries of similar length.
Power Source & Carbon
Open-source model deployable anywhere. Popular on Hugging Face with thousands of fine-tuned variants.
Water Usage
At ~1.3 mL per query, the water footprint is minimal and comparable to text-only models of similar size.
About LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision
LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision is an open-source multimodal model from Meta, released in September 25, 2024, that runs below the category average for energy consumption at 0.50 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. At 11B parameters, it open-source multimodal model with image understanding.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Meta has not published official energy data for LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
Key Insights
Meta LLaMA Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision.
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How much energy does LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision use per query?
Each LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision query consumes approximately 0.50 Wh of energy. This is 2x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Self-hosted (varies), each query produces approximately 0.20 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 475 g CO2/kWh with 27% renewable energy.
How much water does LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision use?
Each query consumes approximately 1 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision compare to a Google search?
A LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision query uses 2x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while LLaMA 3.2 11B Vision uses 0.50 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Vision-Language Transformer (decoder-only)
Parameters
11B
Context window
128,000 tokens
Release date
2024-09-25
Open source
Yes
Training data cutoff
2024-08