alt Hacker NewsSome ppl don't like to hear it. But I would assume that token costs when using an inference provider are cheaper than electricity of using locally.
If we just take into account output token generation for simplicity. With 5tps u get 18k tokens an hour. That would costs around 0.005USD from an inference provider.
I estimate that the server consumes probably around 500W during inference.
In Germany where 1kwh cost around 0.3USD, 18k tokens inferred locally would therefore cost 0.15USD which is 30x the costs of using an inference provider.
But for ppl who worry about their data, running locally might still be good. However, they should be aware, that it is much less efficient than using an inference provider.
The efficiency gap will also significantly increase as new GPUs will make inference much more efficient.
EDIT: I first thought it'd be 180k token, but thanks to someone mentioning in the comments, it is 18k. I guess with that, it will be tough unless u got electricity almost for free. Also, the inference providers are probably still using H200/H100 for those small models. Once they use GB300 or next year the new Ruby GPUs, inference will be cheaper by a factor of 30. By then, running local models will mostly be about privacy.
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I don't pay anywhere near 0.30usd in the US - I pay half that off peak and can buy 1000$ worth of batteries to load up on super off peak (0.11usd). Also the inference providers are fighting over market share with huge debt loads so they are definitely going to go up in price.
Of course efficiency matters, but a lot of people either have cheap electricity or efficient hardware. My AMD strix halo home server can serve Gemma4-26B at like 70 TPS (rough estimate, I don’t remember the exact speed buts its fast af) while only using 100W.
Not OP, but your math is a bit off - I have solar panels :)
don't care, and yeah i don't like to hear it. we don't run local because it's cheaper money wise. we do it for freedom, for privacy and having option makes it cheaper in the long run. if there was no local options, your cloud model would cost much more!
It would be more efficient if you had multiple users (or agents) making parallel requests to take advantage of batching, right?
You pay 3x as much for electricity as I do, so the math here is going to work out very differently depending on a lot of factors.
Locally I’m looking at about CAD $0.05 per kWh when off peak.
its 18k not 180k
It's the "Race-to-Idle" situation all over again. It consumes less power to complete a task faster, whereas using "low power" hardware that draws max TDP for 30 minutes isn't very power efficient.
The privacy nuts have a better leg to stand on, but even then it's hard to believe that they're using on-prem AI to replace SOTA model inference. As cool as local LLMs are, a lot of the stuff people run is a novelty.
> Some ppl don't like to hear it. But I would assume that token costs when using an inference provider are cheaper than electricity of using locally.
Maybe, but for how long? Prices keep going up, and every new model eats more and more tokens...