Event Information: Climate Conversations: Powering AI

Climate Conversations: Powering AI

Join us for a discussion navigating the challenges of power demand, emissions, and sustainability of AI.

Increasing investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting a larger discussion around sustainability, from the huge demand for electricity to power data centers to the life cycle emissions of hardware needed to enable this technology. Globally, companies and governments are preparing for significant increases in energy use and raw material extraction to meet demand. On the other hand, evolving technology and breakthroughs in AI optimization could lead to lower emissions than previously anticipated. Join us for a discussion about opportunities to decarbonize AI and learn how leaders in the field are navigating the uncertainty.

Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action is a monthly webinar series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that aims to convene high-level, cross-cutting, nonpartisan conversations about issues relevant to policy action on climate change.

Participant Bios

Kristin Hayes joined Resources for the Future in 2009, originally supporting a large-scale, multiyear project assessing the effectiveness and costs of a range of national US energy policy options. She now acts as RFF’s Senior Director for Research and Policy Engagement, helping to develop RFF’s research strategy and leading a number of convening and communications efforts at RFF. She is also a co-host of RFF’s weekly podcast, Resources Radio. Kristin has a BS from the College of William and Mary and an M.Sc. from the University of Oxford.

Cooper Elsworth leads Google's AI and Cloud emissions program, where he measures emissions across Google data centers workloads. With a background in ClimateTech software and climate science research, he develops actionable data for corporate carbon accounting and decarbonization efforts. Cooper holds a PhD in Geophysics and MS in Computational Mathematics from Stanford University.

Yury Dvorkin is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and has received numerous research, leadership, and service awards, including the 2016 Scientific Achievement Award from the Clean Energy Institute (University of Washington), the 2019 NSF CAREER Award, the Goddard Junior Faculty Fellowship (New York University), and the Provost’s Fellowship for Public Engagement (Johns Hopkins University). His research focuses on energy systems modeling to support the transition to a low-carbon society, with emphasis on energy policy, planning, operations, and market decision-making.

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