Pika 2.5 Environmental Impact
Improved realism with Scene Ingredients — up to 42 seconds
- Architecture
- Video generation model (next-gen)
- Provider
- Pika
Energy per query
210.0 Wh
700x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
74.0 g
US East (Virginia) grid (450 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
389 mL
~3 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Cloud (US)
Provider
Pika
Category
Video Generation
Grid carbon intensity
450 g CO2/kWh (25% renewable)
How does Pika 2.5 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Pika 2.5 features improved realism, a Scene Ingredients system for fine-grained control, and supports clips up to 42 seconds. At ~210 Wh per 10-second clip, it is moderately efficient for its quality tier. Pikaswaps and Pikaffects enable creative video manipulation.
About Pika 2.5
Pika 2.5 sits at the high end of AI energy consumption at 210.0 Wh per generating one short video clip — over 700x what a Google search uses. Pika's video generation model, released in January 15, 2026, improved realism with scene ingredients — up to 42 seconds. The extreme energy cost reflects the computational complexity of video generation: generating coherent frames across both space and time.
These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Pika has not published official energy data for Pika 2.5. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.
Pika 2.5 in Context
The video generation premium
One Pika 2.5 generation uses 210.0 Wh — the equivalent of 18 full smartphone charges. Video generation requires running a diffusion model across both spatial and temporal dimensions, making it fundamentally more compute-intensive than text or image tasks. This is not an efficiency problem to be solved; it is an inherent characteristic of the task.
What does your Pika 2.5 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Pika 2.5.
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How much energy does Pika 2.5 use per query?
Each Pika 2.5 query consumes approximately 210.0 Wh of energy. This is 700x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Pika 2.5's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Cloud (US), each query produces approximately 74.0 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 Pika 2.5 use?
Each query consumes approximately 389 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Pika 2.5 compare to a Google search?
A Pika 2.5 query uses 700x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Pika 2.5 uses 210.0 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Video generation model (next-gen)
Release date
2026-01-15
Open source
No