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How much energy does Qwen3.5-2B use?

Alibaba · released 2026-02-24

Qwen3.5-2B uses about 0.012 Wh of electricity to answer a typical question. A long, complex answer costs about 23× more, at 0.285 Wh. That places it 28 of 266 among the models we can measure, and every figure here is calculated the same way as every other model.

A typical question
0.012 Wh
under a metre of driving
A long, complex answer
0.285 Wh
under a metre of driving
Capability
None
Energy rank
28 of 266

What this figure is

Calculated  Calculated from a published parameter count. Every model on this site is calculated the same way, so the comparison holds even where the absolute value carries uncertainty. Our figures are good to roughly a factor of two to three, which is why we only ever state a difference of 5× or more.

Is there a better choice?

A lighter model that does the job
Nothing we track is both at least as capable as Qwen3.5-2B and meaningfully lighter. On our figures this is already a sensible choice for its standard of work.

What Alibaba publishes

Energy cannot be worked out without knowing how big a model is. Of the 45 models from Alibaba that we track, 25 can be assessed at all — the rest publish too little for anyone outside the company to calculate anything.

Where these figures come from

Capability and the roster come from Epoch AI, whose Capabilities Index is the 58-benchmark composite quoted above. Energy is calculated with EcoLogits and calibrated against laboratory measurements from ML.ENERGY. Human preference comes from LMArena. All four are public and free; the full method is here.

These figures are published under CC BY 4.0 — use them anywhere, including commercially, with credit to The AI Footprint.

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Figure calculated 2026-09-20 · how these numbers are made · the full comparison of 266 models