Energy Hungry AI: What's The Hidden Cost of Your GenAI Search?

AI Explainer: When you enter a prompt in an AI search, it is consuming more resources than a traditional web search, driving higher Carbon emissions.

A traditional Google search consumes 0.0003-kilowatt hour (KWh) energy on an average, according to a 2009 Google report. That energy can power your household (9 watt) light bulb for about 2 minutes. Google averages about 8.5 billion searches per day as of 2023, translating to 2,550,000 KWh worth of electricity per day, which is about 2000 times more electricity than an average Indian consumes (1255 KWh) for an entire year.

This May, Google announced that the company will integrate AI into its search engine, which will be powered by its most powerful AI model - Gemini.  According to Alex de Vries, a Dutch Data Scientist who spoke to The New Yorker on the subject, a single Google search with AI integrated in it will consume 10 times more energy (3 KWh) than the traditional Google search. That is 20,000 times more than the average Indian's consumption for a year. 

Alex de Vries, who is also the founder of Digiconomist-the organisation responsible for Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index- has said that Google's energy consumption will reach about 29 billion terawatt-hours (TWh) per year if they go ahead with the AI integration in its search. This figure is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Ireland, and more than that of Kenya.