Author HubMatthias Bastian

In a romanticized essay on the supposedly imminent singularity, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentions an interesting fact about ChatGPT's energy consumption: a single ChatGPT request consumes an average of 0.34 watt-hours of power and 0.000085 gallons of water. That energy usage is roughly on par with what a Google search consumed back in 2009, but Altman excludes the fact that ChatGPT is likely handling far more requests per person. And with new AI models like multimodal systems, agents, and advanced reasoning engines demanding even more compute, the rapid expansion of data centers suggests the overall energy appetite of these systems is only increasing.

Google's Veo 3 video generator now includes a faster option, Veo 3 Fast, which more than doubles the speed of the previous model at 720p resolution, according to Google's Josh Woodward. The update is already available in both the Gemini app and Flow. For Gemini Pro users, the daily limit has increased to three new video generations—up from the earlier single ten-credit pack—while Flow Pro users are charged 20 credits per video. Gemini and Flow Ultra subscribers continue to receive higher quality and more generations on their existing plans. Google is testing additional features like picture-to-video with voice input. The company also plans to expand Veo 3 Fast to more countries and make it available for Workspace accounts.