← Back to the clock · updated 26 October 2026
There is no single answer, and the published figures disagree by an order of magnitude or more.
Company figures are medians for short text prompts on the latest, most efficient hardware. Independent estimates often assumed older hardware, longer outputs or included more of the supply chain. Water figures also depend on whether they count only on-site cooling or also the water used to generate the electricity. Image, video, reasoning and agent workloads can use far more than a short text prompt.