首次全面评估大模型开发全周期环境影响,发现硬件制造占碳排放近半。
Holistically Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Creating Language Models
- 量化大模型从研发到训练的全流程碳排与耗水
- 碳排放493吨,相当于98户美国家庭一年用电量
- 硬件制造贡献约50%碳排放,提醒开发者透明化披露
随着人工智能系统性能提升,其创建过程的环境影响日益显著。本文评估了一系列语言模型(参数量2000万至130亿,训练数据达5.6万亿词元)在开发阶段的现实环境影响。考虑硬件制造、模型研发及最终训练,总碳排放达493吨,相当于美国98户家庭一年用电量;耗水276.9万升,相当于一人持续使用24.5年。尽管数据中心本身高度节水,但模型开发环节(含硬件制造)贡献了约50%的碳排放。通过分析功耗时间序列,发现训练期间功耗波动在设备最大功率的15%至85%之间,对电网规划带来挑战。这是首个针对大语言模型完整生命周期环境影响的报告,呼吁开发者提升透明度并关注可持续性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
As the performance of artificial intelligence systems has dramatically increased, so too has the environmental impact of creating these systems. While many model developers release estimates of the power consumption and carbon emissions from the final training runs for their latest models, there is comparatively little transparency into the impact of model development, hardware manufacturing, and total water usage throughout. In this work, we estimate the real-world environmental impact of developing a series of language models, ranging from 20 million to 13 billion active parameters, trained on up to 5.6 trillion tokens each. When accounting for hardware manufacturing, model development, and our final training runs, we find that our series of models released 493 metric tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to powering about 98 homes in the United States for one year, and consumed 2.769 million liters of water, equivalent to about 24.5 years of water usage by a person in the United States, even though our data center is extremely water-efficient. We measure and report the environmental impact of our model development; to the best of our knowledge we are the first to do so for LLMs, and we find that model development, the impact of which is generally not disclosed by most model developers, amounted to ~50% of that of training. By looking at detailed time series data for power consumption, we also find that power usage throughout training is not consistent, fluctuating between ~15% and ~85% of our hardware's maximum power draw, with negative implications for grid-scale planning as demand continues to grow. We close with a discussion on the continued difficulty of estimating the environmental impact of AI systems, and key takeaways for model developers and the public at large.
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