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.
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:2606. 14707v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: AI training and deployment consume substantial electricity, but carbon outcomes remain weakly integrated into routine model development decisions.
By Yuxin Chen (University of Helsinki, Finland), Hao Gao (Independent Researcher), Chujie Zou (University of Helsinki, Finland)
The paper investigates the environmental impact of running large language models (LLMs) on mobile devices. It evaluates 18 different LLM configurations on two smartphones and a server, measuring energy per token, latency, accuracy, and battery-cycle consumption. Findings reveal that on-device inference is about three times less energy‑efficient than batched server inference, that energy consumption varies non‑monotonically with quantization bit‑width, and that most models are not on the Pareto front of accuracy and energy efficiency. The study concludes that local AI is not inherently more sustainable than cloud inference, with the majority of environmental impact stemming from device embodied carbon.
By \'Edouard Gu\'egain, Tristan Coignion
arXiv:2606. 10660v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: AI inference services -- API subscriptions, enterprise chat tools, and SaaS products with embedded AI features -- fall unambiguously within Scope 3 Category 1 under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires disclosure for fiscal years starting January 2024.
By Guillermo Llopis (SOMA AI, Barcelona)
arXiv:2607. 05408v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The environmental impact of training large language models (LLMs) is increasingly scrutinised, yet most published estimates focus on operational energy and disclose little about manufacturing (embodied) emissions, water consumption, or the underlying highperformance computing (HPC) infrastructure.
By Marc L\'eobet, Pierre-Fran\c{c}ois Lavall\'ee, Jean-Pierre Lorr\'e
arXiv:2608.28667v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: The rapid proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) has raised concerns about their environmental impact during inference. While Green AI researc...
By Rajeswari Kannan, Raj Firke, Shreya Bengle, Srushti Deshmukh
arXiv:2608. 12915v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The rapid growth of LLM inference is shifting sustainability concerns from one-time training to continuous serving, where infrastructure decisions shape energy use, carbon emissions, water consumption, and service quality.
By Nicoletta Tsiopani, Moysis Symeonides, George Pallis, Marios D. Dikaiakos
The paper reports a reproducible GPU power benchmark for 18 open‑source LLMs (0.5B–7B parameters) run on a single consumer RTX 4060ti GPU using the Ollama inference engine. Energy metrics such as mean/peak power, total energy per prompt, energy per output token, and throughput were measured, revealing that model architecture and quantization strategy, rather than parameter count alone, drive energy efficiency. The most efficient models were qwen2.5:0.5b and tinyllama:1.1b, while the 7B‑Mistral model consumed up to 8.6× more energy per token, and qwen3.5:0.8b(on) showed unusually high per‑prompt energy due to extended internal reasoning.
By Philipp M. Z\"ahl, Elja Dalipaj, Anika Hennig, Timon Bayer
arXiv:2605. 23348v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: AI power demand is growing at an unprecedented rate while power grids are often ailing and struggle to keep up.
By Tella Rajashekhar Reddy, Atharva Deshmukh, Liangcheng Yu, Chaojie Zhang, Mike Shepperd, Rohan Gandhi, Anjaly Parayil, Srinivasan Iyengar, Ajay Manchepalli, Debopam Bhattacherjee
arXiv:2606. 11215v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large Language Model (LLM) usage in recent years has become increasingly widespread in the Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) community.
By Sabrina C. Eimler, Lukas Erle, Daniel Flood, Aditi Haiman, Luca H\"ackert, Andr\'e Helgert, Lachlan McGinness, B\"usra Yapici
arXiv:2608.28044v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Large language model (LLM) inference serving is priced by tokens, but GPU energy is consumed over inference windows. This accounting mismatch makes t...
By Prabhu Vellaisamy, Vanessa Lam, Shawn Blanton, John Paul Shen