💧 Google reveals Gemini’s energy cost

Also: Meta partners with Midjourney

Author

Evolving AI
August 25, 2025

In partnership with

Welcome, AI enthusiasts

We’ve got a new logo, but other than that: same newsletter, same focus on AI! Google released energy and water consumption estimates for its Gemini AI apps. It is the first major tech company to publish this information. Estimates are lower than public calculations, but industry-wide usage is still unclear. Let’s dive in!

In today’s insights:

  • Google reveals Gemini’s energy cost

  • Meta partners with Midjourney

  • Musk’s xAI files trademark for “Macrohard”

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Evolving AI: Google has published new data on the energy, carbon, and water footprint of its Gemini AI queries, offering rare transparency on the environmental cost of AI.

Key Points:

  • A Gemini text query uses 0.24 Wh of electricity, 0.03 g CO₂e, and 0.26 ml of water.

  • Gemini is now 33x more energy-efficient than last year, but overall emissions still rise.

  • Google is pursuing nuclear power, renewables, and demand-response strategies to manage AI’s growth.

Details:

Google’s report shows the average environmental cost of a single Gemini prompt: about 9 seconds of TV power, 5 drops of water, and a fraction of a gram of CO₂. While the numbers seem small, scale changes everything. Billions of daily queries drive soaring demand on data centers, which consumed 30.8 million MWh in 2024, more than double 2020. Despite efficiency gains, Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have climbed 51% since 2019, with AI a major driver. To address this, the company is securing renewable contracts, trialing molten salt nuclear reactors with Kairos Power, and using demand-response programs to ease grid stress. Google’s numbers feel transparent, but some experts say they only show part of the picture. The real strain comes from model training, where a single system can consume millions of dollars in energy, release hundreds of tons of CO₂, and drain water on the scale of an Olympic pool.

Why It Matters:

Each Gemini query looks small, but the surge in demand is forcing Google to rethink power itself. When AI growth pushes a company into nuclear projects and grid deals, it stops being just about smarter models and starts being about who shapes the future of energy. In the past few months China has shown it is far ahead in this area, which makes it crucial for Silicon Valley to find solutions fast if they want to keep pace with demand and the training of new models.

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META & MIDJOURNEY
🎨 Meta partners with Midjourney

Evolving AI: Meta is teaming up with Midjourney to bring its aesthetic tech into AI models and products.

Key Points:

  • Alexandr Wang announced a new Meta–Midjourney partnership.

  • Collaboration goes beyond licensing, with research teams working together.

  • Meta is weaving AI image tools into Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and the Meta AI app.

Details:

Meta’s new chief AI officer Alexandr Wang revealed that the company has partnered with Midjourney to “license their aesthetic technology” for use in Meta’s AI models and services. Wang hinted that the deal includes direct research collaboration, not just product licensing. This move aligns with Meta’s push to expand AI imagery across its platforms, from social feeds in the Meta AI app to image-generation features inside Facebook posts, Instagram chats, and WhatsApp. Midjourney, known for its widely used image and video generation tools, will stay independent. Meta declined to share financial terms, and Midjourney has not yet commented on the specifics.

Why It Matters:

Meta isn’t just adding another model. It’s renting Midjourney’s eye, which creators already trust, and wiring that taste into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and the Meta AI app. Midjourney has hit hundreds of millions in ARR with roughly a 100-person team, which shows real demand and scary efficiency. The move also signals Meta may be stepping back from its own image models, which have long felt second-rate compared to its competitors.

Source: Benzinga

Evolving AI: Elon Musk’s xAI is planning to simulate software giants like Microsoft with a new AI-only project called “Macrohard.”

Key Points:

  • xAI filed a trademark for “Macrohard” on August 1.

  • The filing covers AI tools for speech, text, and even game design.

  • Musk says software companies without hardware can be fully simulated by AI.

Details:

Musk described Macrohard as “very real,” suggesting an AI-driven company that mirrors traditional software firms. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing shows plans for a wide range of AI services, from generating human-like speech and text to coding, running, and playing video games. This marks another push from Musk into AI and robotics, adding to his ventures alongside Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X Corp.

Why It Matters:

Macrohard reads like a joke, but it is a real test of a bigger shift where agent teams build and run software with minimal humans. If xAI can use Grok to coordinate swarms of coding and testing agents that ship real products, the limit stops being talent and starts being compute and distribution. That puts pressure on big players and speeds up the agent-driven development trend already showing up in coding tools today.

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