UsesLevel 2 of 6 machine operationMachine operation, level 2 of 6Used to calculate 1 entry, level 5Calculated with 1 entry, level 1Database structure 
6Territories
5Organisations
4Occupations and activities
3Uses
1Calculation factorsIndex 1,000 pages for an AI
The electricity used to turn 1,000 pages into vectors that an AI then retrieves, for an assistant working on internal documents. Projet Celsius estimate.
- The figure covers passing the 640,000 tokens of the pages through a medium-sized embedding model.
- The electricity range goes from 0.7 Wh to 20 Wh, within the scope of this entry.
- CO2e is calculated from electricity and the worldwide grid; it is not a direct measurement of carbon.
- Out of scope: storing the vectors, the searches made afterwards and data centre cooling.
Sentence to citeIndex 1,000 pages for an AI, Projet Celsius estimate: 1.4 gCO2e per 1,000 pages, for 3 Wh of electricity, servers worldwide (458 gCO2e/kWh).
- Calculated with
- Used to calculate
Origin of the value
Estimate based on AI Energy Score measurements on embedding models served one at a time: the database uses 3 Wh, from 0.7 to 20 Wh.
Comparison with the other machine operations
Characteristics
| Unit | 1,000 pages |
|---|---|
| Default location | world, 458 gCO2e/kWh (Ember 2025, life cycle); 11 other locations to choose from |
| Counted | passing the 640,000 tokens of the pages through a medium-sized embedding model |
| Not counted | storing the vectors, the searches made afterwards and data centre cooling |
| Status | estimated, 1 other published value |
All the characteristics
| Identifier | IA-0020, projetcelsius.com/en/ai/database/IA-0020/ |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.1 of 2 November 2026 |
| Category | Machine operations, what the server computes |
| Choice of the selected value | value taken as it stands from its source, without calculation |
| Sources | · |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
Result for the chosen case
This block is made of no other: its value is read from its sources.
Entries that use it (1)
Sources of the calculation
1 publication, for this entry and those used to calculate it, with the chosen parameters.
Conversion into carbon
The source of the electricity factor of the selected location.
Worldwide: 458 gCO2e/kWh, life cycle.
Role and limits : Ember
Author. Ember, Our World in Data
What the publication covers. electricity generation over the life cycle, by country
What it does not cover. guarantees of origin
Reading by the database. The same source for all countries
Conversion of electricity into carbon: worldwide
Scope of the figure used. the production of electricity over the life cycle, including power plant construction and fuels
Limit. An average for the chosen country, not the electricity contract or the data centre of a specific service.
Published values
1 figure for the same quantity, each within its own scope.
| Source | Date | Electricity | What the figure measures | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Index 1,000 pagesselected by the database, v0.1 | 2026 | 3 Wh | the range published by the source: from 0.7 Wh to 20 Wh | same scope | estimated |
| Database checks and calculations | |||||
| AI Energy Score, Projet Celsius calculation ↗AI Energy Score, task leaderboard data | 2025 | 20.2 Wh | Multilingual E5 large instruct, 0.00072 Wh for a sentence of about 23 tokens, scaled to the 640,000 tokens of 1,000 pages | other scope | computation |
The published figures do not all count the same scope; the scope of each figure is written next to it. Why do the estimates diverge?
Methodology conventions
With their alternatives
| The default location | Without other information, the servers are in the world, at the world average electricity |
|---|---|
| Electricity, location-based, on a life cycle basis | The kilowatt-hour is that of the servers' country, on a life cycle basis, from a single source for all countries |
| Two significant figures | A calculated value is rounded to two significant figures, a published value is reproduced with the precision of its source; the calculation keeps full precision |
| Calculate a case without an entry | The formula, the default values and a step-by-step example |
History
Entry in version 0.1 of 2 November 2026, in the database in version 0.4
- 2 November 2026Version 0.1 of the entry, as of the date of its current value.
- 31 October 2026Creation of the database, in its first version (0.1).
