Google's Gemini App: Tiny Requests, Huge Cumulative Impact

Google's team analyzed the energy consumption of its Gemini app. A single text request consumes a minuscule amount of energy, equivalent to about nine seconds of TV watching. However, the massive volume of requests results in a significant cumulative energy consumption and carbon footprint. Encouragingly, over the past year, Google has reduced energy consumption per prompt by 33x and carbon emissions by 1.4x through software optimizations (like Mixture-of-Experts) and renewable energy usage. This highlights how even seemingly small AI requests can have a large environmental impact at scale, demanding continuous technological improvements and energy strategy optimization.