--- title: "OpenAI’s Latest AI Can Cost More Than $1,000 Per Query" description: "OpenAI's recently unveiled o3 AI model can cost well over $1,000 per task when used in its most powerful mode." date: "2024-12-30" modified: "2024-12-30" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-o3-cost-per-query" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "large language models" - "o3" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # OpenAI’s Latest AI Can Cost More Than $1,000 Per Query ![OpenAI's recently unveiled o3 AI model can cost well over $1,000 per task when used in its most powerful mode.]() *date created: 2005:09:17 | notes: shot with Mamiya RZ67 | release references: mr2.jpg, pr1.jpg | release status: MR\_PR | technique: digital composite | date created: 2006:06:27 \Image: Getty Images\* ## Money to Burn OpenAI's recently unveiled o3 model is purportedly its most powerful AI yet, but with one big drawback: it costs ungodly sums of money to run, [*TechCrunch* reports](). Announced just over a week ago, o3 "reasons" through problems using a technique known as test-time compute — as in, it takes more time to "think" and explore multiple possibilities before spitting out an answer. As such, OpenAI engineers hope that the AI model will produce better responses to complex prompts instead of jumping to a faulty conclusion. It appears to have worked, at least to some degree. In its most powerful "high-compute mode," o3 scored 87.5 percent on the ARC-AGI benchmark designed to test language models, [according to]() the test's creator François Chollet. That's nearly three times as high as the previous o1 model's best score, at just 32 percent. All that fastidious thinking, however, comes with exorbitant expenses. To achieve that high-water mark, o3 used well over $1,000 of computing power per task — over 170 times more compute than a low-power version of o3, and leagues beyond its predecessor, which [cost less]() than $4 per task. ## Wall to Wall These costs complicate the [industry's claims]() that o3's performance soundly debunks fears that improving AI models through "scaling," or by furnishing them with more processing power and training data, [has hit a wall](). On the one hand, that o3 scored nearly three times higher than o1, which was released just three months ago, seems ample evidence that AI gains aren't slowing down. But the criticism with scaling is that [it yields diminishing returns](). While the gains here were in large part achieved through changing how the AI model "reasons" instead of scaling alone, the added costs are difficult to ignore. Even the low-compute version of o3, which scored a still breakthrough-worthy 76 percent on the benchmark, cost around $20 per task. That's a relative bargain, but still many times more expensive than its predecessors — and with ChatGPT Plus costing just $25 per month, it's not clear how much smarter that user-facing product will be able to get without putting OpenAI deeply in the red. ## High Salary In a [blog post]() explaining the benchmark results, Chollet asserts that though o3 is approaching human levels of performance, it "comes at a steep cost, and wouldn't quite be economical yet." "You could pay a human to solve ARC-AGI tasks for roughly $5 per task (we know, we did that)," he wrote, "while consuming mere cents in energy." He is adamant, however, that "cost-performance will likely improve quite dramatically over the next few months and years." And to that, we'll just have to wait and see. Right now, o3 [isn't available to public yet](), with a "mini" version of it slated to launch in January. **More on AI:** *[Facebook Planning to Flood Platform with AI-Powered Users]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()