Development of a study to measure and foster energy efficient and low emission artificial intelligence in the EU

Procurement description

• explore the current and expected carbon footprint of AI
• develop a measurement framework which could serve as a basis to address the energy related objectives of the AI Act and also to develop a potential AI energy and emission label
• identify the suitable governance and implementation for the measurement framework and
• identify promote energy-efficient and low emission AI best practices through an online repository.

Justification: AI has a strong potential to solve environmental problems. However, despite its high potential to the environmental and climate crisis, training and executing algorithms imply high- energy consumption and carbon emissions. This environmental impact will increase overtime as the volume of data transferred and stored and the development of AI applications will continue to grow exponentially in the years to come.

This study supports the understanding of the issues involved in measuring the environmental impact of the use of AI while identifying possible approaches to incentivising the use of green AI by developers mitigating it.