Artificial intelligence promises both to combat the ill effects of climate change and to make the emergency worse with excessive energy use. How can AI be made greener?

Got to start somewhere

One option is to give AI models a starting point or structure, according to Jon Crowcroft, Professor of Communication Systems at The University of Cambridge and founder of Cambridge-based data discovery firm iKVA.

Language models used to include structural rules rather than being based on analysing billions of words, and similarly science-focused models can benefit from having relevant principles programmed in. This particularly applies when analysing language, videos or images, where volumes of data tend to be very high.

iKVA’s founder and advisor, Professor Jon Crowcroft, shares his insight about “Making AI Greener and More Efficient” in the latest feature for Computer Weekly.