0.3 Wh / search
Google’s published figure for a search at the time, including work such as building the search index.
Read Google’s original account ↗Cronkite · The newsroom project
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A worked investigation · sources through August 2025
Can the sources support “10×”?
Trace the number, compare what was counted, then inspect the assessment. Your choices stay in this page; nothing is submitted.
01 / Start with the wording
What does this sentence ask you to believe?
“A ChatGPT query uses about ten times the electricity of a Google search.”
It sounds like a general comparison between two services. To support it, the figures need to describe comparable queries and systems.
02 / Follow the two numbers
The ratio joins figures from different years.
~3 Wh / query
An estimate discussed in Alex de Vries’s paper, alongside estimates of ChatGPT’s daily electricity use and request volume.
Read the Joule paper ↗~3 ÷ 0.3 ≈ 10The arithmetic is straightforward. Whether these figures support the sentence is a different question.
Does the later Gemini measurement settle it?
Google’s August 2025 report adds a production measurement for Gemini. It does not supply a matching Google Search measurement, and Gemini is not ChatGPT.
Inspect the 2025 report ↗03 / Check the comparison
Three questions before using the ratio.
Search figure
Published in 2009
Describes a historical service.
AI figure
Discussed in 2023
Describes estimates from a later generation of technology.
These dates do not establish how the two services compare today.
Search figure
A company-reported figure
Google describes energy per search and associated background work.
AI figure
An estimate
The paper discusses assumptions about energy use and query volume.
The sources are not a paired measurement using one shared method.
Search figure
A search query
Work includes retrieving results and supporting the search service.
AI figure
An LLM interaction
Query length, output length and system setup can change what is being compared.
Define the task and count the same parts of each system before treating the ratio as general.
04 / The assessment
Too strong as stated.
These sources do not establish a current, general ten-times ratio. They also do not establish that the opposite claim is true.
A more defensible account
The widely cited comparison draws on an older Google Search figure and later estimates for LLM queries. A current, matched comparison is still needed to support the general claim.
The next useful test measures both services in the same period, defines comparable tasks and counts the same parts of each system.
See how this fits the FP1 method →The complete source record
| Date | Source | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Google publishes roughly 0.3 Wh for a search ↗. | Describes search in 2009, not today. |
| Oct 2023 | Alex de Vries examines AI electricity consumption ↗; the cited estimate is roughly 3 Wh per query. | An estimate of energy per AI query. |
| 2023–24 | Press and institutions repeat “ten times more.” | Repeats the estimate; adds no new measurement. |
| Aug 2025 | Google publishes a production Gemini prompt measurement ↗. | Adds a measured AI result, but no matched Google Search result. |
A checked claim is the start of the story. See five correspondents compare the implications of AI infrastructure demand →
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