Claude 3 vs GPT-4: Which AI Model is Greener?

When choosing an LLM for your app, you compare benchmarks, price, and speed. But what about sustainability? We analyzed the architecture and token efficiency of the top two contenders.

The Architecture Difference

While exact parameters are trade secrets, industry analysis suggests distinct approaches:

• GPT-4: Believed to use a "Mixture of Experts" (MoE) model with massive parameter counts (estimated 1.8 Trillion). Even though it only activates some experts per token, the infrastructure overhead is massive.
• Claude 3: Anthropic focuses heavily on "Constitutional AI" and efficiency. Their Haiku model is the standout here—it punches far above its weight class while being incredibly fast and lightweight.

The Winner: Claude 3 Haiku

For 90% of tasks (summarization, classification, simple chat), Claude 3 Haiku is the clear green winner.

It rivals GPT-4's performance on many benchmarks but runs at a fraction of the cost and energy. If you are building a high-volume application, switching to Haiku could reduce your carbon emissions by 8-10x.