Mistral Small 4 Environmental Impact
Unified reasoning + multimodal + coding in one small model
- Architecture
- Dense Transformer (unified capabilities)
- Context
- 128,000 tokens
- Provider
- Mistral AI
Energy per query
0.40 Wh
about the same as a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.02 g
France grid (50 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
0.30 mL
~3,333 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Mistral AI (France) / self-hosted
Provider
Mistral AI
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
50 g CO2/kWh (90% renewable)
How does Mistral Small 4 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Mistral Small 4 unifies Magistral (reasoning), Pixtral (multimodal), and Devstral (coding) capabilities into a single versatile small model. At ~0.4 Wh per query, it replaces three specialised models with one efficient general-purpose model. Open-source.
Power Source & Carbon
Via Mistral API, runs on France's clean nuclear grid (50 g CO2/kWh). Also self-hostable.
Water Usage
At ~0.3 mL per query. Zero when self-hosted on consumer hardware.
About Mistral Small 4
Mistral Small 4 is an open-source text and chat model from Mistral AI, released in March 16, 2026, that runs well below the category average for energy consumption at 0.40 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. It unified reasoning + multimodal + coding in one small model.
Mistral Small 4 benefits from running in France, one of the cleaner grid regions in our dataset at 50 gCO₂/kWh with 90% renewable energy. The same model running in a coal-heavy region would produce significantly more carbon per query.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Mistral AI has not published official energy data for Mistral Small 4. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
Mistral Small 4 in Context
Your yearly Mistral Small 4 footprint
At 25 queries per day, your annual Mistral Small 4 usage consumes 3.6 kWh — comparable to running a LED light bulb for a month. That produces 0.2 kg of CO₂.
Key Insights
Mistral AI Mistral Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your Mistral Small 4 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Mistral Small 4.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does Mistral Small 4 use per query?
Each Mistral Small 4 query consumes approximately 0.40 Wh of energy. This is about the same as a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Mistral Small 4's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Mistral AI (France) / self-hosted, each query produces approximately 0.02 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 50 g CO2/kWh with 90% renewable energy.
How much water does Mistral Small 4 use?
Each query consumes approximately 0.30 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Mistral Small 4 compare to a Google search?
A Mistral Small 4 query uses about the same as a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Mistral Small 4 uses 0.40 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Dense Transformer (unified capabilities)
Context window
128,000 tokens
Release date
2026-03-16
Open source
Yes
Training data cutoff
2026-02