Code Assistant

Qwen3-Coder 480B Environmental Impact

Q: What is Qwen3-Coder 480B's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of its inference location (Alibaba Cloud / self-hosted), each Qwen3-Coder 480B query produces approximately 0.66g of CO2.

Q: How does Qwen3-Coder 480B compare to a Google search?

A Qwen3-Coder 480B query uses 4x more than a traditional Google search in terms of energy consumption. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Qwen3-Coder 480B uses 1.2 Wh per query.

Q: How much water does Qwen3-Coder 480B use?

Each Qwen3-Coder 480B query consumes approximately 4.4 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

StandardEstimated

Strongest free coding model on OpenRouter — 480B MoE / 35B active

Architecture: Mixture-of-Experts (35B active, code-specialised)
Parameters: 480B
Context: 262,000 tokens
Provider: Alibaba

1.2 Wh

Energy per query

0.66 g

CO₂ per query

4 mL

Water per query

4x more than

vs Google search

Energy per query

1.2 Wh

4x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)

CO2 per query

0.66 g

China grid (550 gCO₂/kWh)

Water per query

4 mL

~227 queries to fill 1 litre

Processing location

Alibaba Cloud / self-hosted

Provider

Alibaba

How does Qwen3-Coder 480B compare?

Ranked #67 of 152 models by energy per query

View full comparison

Detailed Breakdown

Energy Consumption

Qwen3-Coder 480B is the strongest free coding model on OpenRouter, with 480B total parameters but only 35B active per token (MoE). At ~1.2 Wh per completion, it achieves SoTA on coding and agentic benchmarks. Context extends to 1M tokens with YaRN. Apache 2.0 licensed.

NVIDIA NIM — Qwen3-Coder 480B

Power Source & Carbon

Open-source (Apache 2.0). Widely deployed on OpenRouter, Together AI, and self-hosted setups.

Alibaba — Qwen3-Coder

Water Usage

At ~4.4 mL per completion. Self-hosted on consumer hardware, water is zero.

UC Riverside — Making AI Less Thirsty (2023)

About Qwen3-Coder 480B

Qwen3-Coder 480B is an open-source code assistant model from Alibaba, released in January 31, 2026, that runs below the category average for energy consumption at 1.2 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 480B parameters, it strongest free coding model on openrouter — 480b moe / 35b active.

These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Alibaba has not published official energy data for Qwen3-Coder 480B. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.

Qwen3-Coder 480B in Context

10.9 kWh

per year

Your yearly Qwen3-Coder 480B footprint

At 25 queries per day, your annual Qwen3-Coder 480B usage consumes 10.9 kWh — roughly what a fridge uses in a month. That produces 6.0 kg of CO₂.

Key Insights

Open-source weights — can be self-hosted on infrastructure you control

What does your Qwen3-Coder 480B usage cost the planet?

Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Qwen3-Coder 480B.

Calculate My Compute

Frequently Asked Questions

How much energy does Qwen3-Coder 480B use per query?

Each Qwen3-Coder 480B query consumes approximately 1.2 Wh of energy. This is 4x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).

What is Qwen3-Coder 480B's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of Alibaba Cloud / self-hosted, each query produces approximately 0.66 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 Qwen3-Coder 480B use?

Each query consumes approximately 4 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

How does Qwen3-Coder 480B compare to a Google search?

A Qwen3-Coder 480B query uses 4x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Qwen3-Coder 480B uses 1.2 Wh.