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lelandbateyyesterday at 8:32 PM1 replyview on HN

Some external context on those approximate claims:

- Run a 1500W USA microwave for 10 seconds: 15,000 joules

- Llama 3.1 405B text generation prompts: On average 6,706 joules total, for each response

- Stable Diffusion 3 Medium generating a 1024 x 1024 pixel image w/ 50 diffusion steps: about 4,402 joules

[1] - MIT Technology Review, 2025-05-20 https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energ...


Replies

wongarsuyesterday at 11:42 PM

A single Google search in 2009: about 1,000 joules

Couldn't find any more up-to-date number, everyone just keeps repeating that 0.0003kWh number from 2009

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-sear...