Mistral Small 3 Environmental Impact
Mistral's efficient small model for production workloads
- Architecture
- Dense Transformer (decoder-only)
- Parameters
- 24B
- Context
- 32,000 tokens
- Provider
- Mistral AI
Energy per query
0.35 Wh
about the same as a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.22 g
Global Average grid (475 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
2 mL
~667 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Self-hosted / Mistral API
Provider
Mistral AI
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
475 g CO2/kWh (27% renewable)
How does Mistral Small 3 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Mistral Small 3 at 24B parameters offers excellent quality for its efficiency class at ~0.35 Wh per query. It competes with models 3x its size while remaining deployable on a single GPU.
Power Source & Carbon
Available as open-source or via Mistral's API, which runs from European data centres. France's nuclear-dominated grid (50 g CO2/kWh) makes Mistral-hosted inference among the cleanest available.
Water Usage
At ~1.5 mL per query, water consumption is modest. European data centres generally have good water efficiency.
About Mistral Small 3
Mistral Small 3 is an open-source text and chat model from Mistral AI, released in January 30, 2025, that runs well below the category average for energy consumption at 0.35 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 24B parameters, it mistral's efficient small model for production workloads.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Mistral AI has not published official energy data for Mistral Small 3. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
Mistral Small 3 in Context
Your yearly Mistral Small 3 footprint
At 25 queries per day, your annual Mistral Small 3 usage consumes 3.2 kWh — comparable to running a LED light bulb for a month. That produces 2.0 kg of CO₂.
Key Insights
Mistral AI Mistral Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your Mistral Small 3 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Mistral Small 3.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does Mistral Small 3 use per query?
Each Mistral Small 3 query consumes approximately 0.35 Wh of energy. This is about the same as a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Mistral Small 3's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Self-hosted / Mistral API, each query produces approximately 0.22 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 Mistral Small 3 use?
Each query consumes approximately 2 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Mistral Small 3 compare to a Google search?
A Mistral Small 3 query uses about the same as a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Mistral Small 3 uses 0.35 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Dense Transformer (decoder-only)
Parameters
24B
Context window
32,000 tokens
Release date
2025-01-30
Open source
Yes
Training data cutoff
2025-01