this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (3 children)

People say this, but almost every time the time interval is left off it's hours.

Either way, the numbers in this meme are clearly made up. Most image generation uses fewer than 10 watt hours.

[–] Engywuck@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

People say this, but almost every time the time interval is left off it's hours.

This is new for me. Must be some engineering thing. I'm a physicist and and I feel guilty if I leave out some units just because, lol.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maybe it's comparing the total power rating of the brain to a data center dedicated to AI

Which is also a stupid comparison because the data cenrer will be processing a lot of parallel requests. That's why you want the unit to be energy rather than power in this case

Or maybe it's all made up.

[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think it's all made up. The most power hungry data center in the world consumes 150MW of power, and that's from a massive 11 million square foot facility in China that's significantly larger than any other data center.

EDIT: an hour of heavy thinking does consume approximately 12 watt hours though, so that figure seems reasonable.

[–] m532@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Can confirm. Image generation with SDXL Turbo uses approx. 0.4 wH.