SummaryThe massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) provides reliable base station (BS) for the mobile users (MUs) with CSI (channel state information) and jointly offers spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). Conversely, because of the existence of multiple transceivers at both the transmitter and receiver side, the channel estimation (CE) issue is increasingly complex and expensive in terms of hardware and energy utilization. Hence, we have proposed an effective Hybrid Grey Wolf Optimization with Cuckoo Search (GWO‐CS) based optimal channel estimation for developing energy efficient mMIMO. The proposed GWO‐CS selects the optimal channel by jointly optimizing the spectral efficiency and reduces the SINR (signal to interference plus noise ratio). Experimental analysis of the performance of the proposed approach is carried out using existing approaches. The results obtained show that, the EE of the proposed GWO‐CS based CE provides 15–37 Mbits for varying quantization bits, 22.5–25 Mbits for different user equipment (UE) ranges and 7–24 Mbits for various SE. However, the existing approaches fail to provide such EE and this proves the efficiency of proposed approach.