ChatGPT vs Claude AI: Carbon Footprints, Pentagon Deal, and Energy Impact
Summary
Comparison of the energy use and carbon emissions of ChatGPT and Claude AI, discussing per-query costs and the impact of OpenAI's Department of Defense deal on user migration.
Key quotes
OpenAI’s GPT‑4o (ChatGPT) uses about 0.30 Wh per request, with around 0.13 grams of CO₂ emitted on a typical global electricity grid.
Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus AI uses significantly more, roughly 4.05 Wh per request, with about 1.80 grams of CO₂ per query in similar conditions.
The article analyzes the environmental cost of AI inference, noting a significant disparity in energy consumption between different model architectures. It also reports on a shift in user preference toward Claude AI following OpenAI’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense.