Phi-4 Environmental Impact
Microsoft's efficient small language model
Per query = Short query (~300 tokens)
Energy per query
0.35 Wh
CO2 per query
0.16 g
Water per query
1 mL
Processing location
Self-hosted (varies) / Azure
Provider
Microsoft
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
475 g CO2/kWh (27% renewable)
How does Phi-4 compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Phi-4 at 14B parameters achieves strong reasoning for its size, estimated at ~0.35 Wh per query. Microsoft's Phi series is specifically optimised for efficiency, designed for deployment on smaller hardware.
Power Source & Carbon
Available on Azure and as open-source weights. Carbon impact depends on deployment location.
Water Usage
At ~1.3 mL per query in a data centre. Negligible when self-hosted.
What does your Phi-4 usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Phi-4.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does Phi-4 use per query?
Each Phi-4 query consumes approximately 0.35 Wh of energy. This is about the same as a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Phi-4's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Self-hosted (varies) / Azure, each query produces approximately 0.16 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 475 g CO2/kWh with 27% renewable energy.
How much water does Phi-4 use?
Each query consumes approximately 1 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Phi-4 compare to a Google search?
A Phi-4 query uses about the same as a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Phi-4 uses 0.35 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Dense Transformer (decoder-only)
Parameters
14B
Context window
16,384 tokens
Release date
2024-12-12
Open source
Yes