I’ve read various stats about the human brain using a surprising percentage of our overall energy budget. I wonder how much energy a whale brain uses (overall and per kg)? While it’s not the only relevant stat, TDP does provide a clue as to processing power.

Agreed! But afaik the neuron process "node" across species is not so different. The relevant metaphor I would think is humans have pcie and a large register count while many (all?) others are still on pata and register starved. Maybe a real biologist can come in with more facts and less bad metaphors

So far it is looking like the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex is the best indicator of intelligence.

http://mitp.nautil.us/feature/227/the-paradox-of-the-elephan...

We started as basic primates, started cooking our food, getting more nutrition, allowing our guts to shrink, allowing us to spend more energy on our brains, growing more and more neurons in the important bits, at which point things spiraled away using our new language and technology to make better technology.

(Not a real biologist)