arXiv Computation and Language

How Do Prompt Variations Affect Energy Consumption in On-Device LLMs?

The paper investigates how prompt design influences energy consumption in on-device large language models (LLMs). It examines two prompt properties—cognitive load and phrasing pattern—across various datasets, models, and devices, using phase-level profiling to separate prefill and decode energy. Findings show that cognitive load mainly affects energy per token, while phrasing pattern influences energy mainly through token usage, and that prompt design reshapes the energy-quality trade‑off differently for each model.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 24

EnerInfer: Energy-Aware On-Device LLM Inference

arXiv:2606. 23001v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: On-device LLM inference is increasingly attractive for privacy-preserving, reliable, and cost-effective deployment, yet its energy and thermal costs remain a critical bottleneck.

By Bohua Zou, Nian Liu, Binqi Sun, Matteo Mascherin, Debayan Roy, Yutao Liu, Yu Peng, Ning Jia, Haibo Chen
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Understanding the Energy Scaling of Large Language Model Inference Across Context Lengths and Attention Architectures

The paper systematically studies decode‑phase energy consumption of open‑source large language models using different attention architectures—Multi‑Head Attention (MHA), Grouped Query Attention (GQA), and GQA with Sliding Window Attention (SWA). It evaluates four models across varying context lengths, batch sizes, and generation workloads, measuring GPU energy via NVIDIA counters. Findings show that the attention mechanism is the main driver of how energy scales with context length, with MHA models growing steeply, GQA models growing less, and GQA+SWA remaining nearly constant; model size mainly sets absolute energy use, while batching can cut energy per token and latency by up to 87%.

By Molka Chkir, Syed Muhammad Danish, Jos H\"oll, Arghavan Asad
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jul 29

From Tokens to Watt-hours: Analytical Energy Estimation for LLM Inference on Modern GPUs

The operational energy consumption of large language model (LLM) inference is becoming an increasingly important component of the environmental footprint of deployed AI systems. However, direct measurement of inference energy often requires hardware telemetry, power instrumentation, or infrastructure-specific monitoring, limiting its applicability in comparative studies, early-stage system design, and sustainability reporting.

Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jul 23

Profiling Lightweight Large Language Models

Lightweight large language models (LLMs) are increasingly being deployed locally on personal computers and are expected to play a growing role in resource-constrained edge and mobile environments. In such settings, energy consumption, execution time, and memory usage directly affect practical usability, yet existing evaluations of LLM efficiency largely rely on proxy descriptors such as parameter count or FLOPs, often decoupled from task precision.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 30

From Tokens to Watt-hours: Analytical Energy Estimation for LLM Inference on Modern GPUs

arXiv:2607. 26571v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The operational energy consumption of large language model (LLM) inference is becoming an increasingly important component of the environmental footprint of deployed AI systems.

By Tina Vartziotis, Rodopi Kosteli, Elli Vartziotis, George Dasoulas, Michael Keckeisen, Konstantinos Skianis, Sotirios Kotsopoulos, Francesca Dominici
arXiv AI
Jul 24

Profiling Lightweight Large Language Models

arXiv:2607. 20806v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Lightweight large language models (LLMs) are increasingly being deployed locally on personal computers and are expected to play a growing role in resource-constrained edge and mobile environments.

By Tomohiro Harada, Enrique Alba, Gabriel Luque