How much the human brain really consumesThe brain’s energy consumption is surprisingly stable. From the point of view of brain energy consumption, the most wasteful processes are:Maintenance of ionic gradients (Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺) across neuronal membranes. How much artificial intelligence consumesIf we shift attention to artificial intelligence, the picture changes radically. The comparison between the human brain and artificial intelligence does not tell us that one is “smarter” than the other. The human brain, however, represents an extraordinary compromise between computational capacity, robustness and efficiency.