Sustainable AI solutions in action
Organizations across industries are already using AI-powered solutions to fuel sustainability progress, drive efficiencies, and reduce costs. Here are just a few examples of AI technologies in action:
Precision agriculture: Feeding the world with fewer resources
Agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, with land use degradation and deforestation accounting for about a quarter of the global greenhouse gas emissions and consuming about 70% of the world’s freshwater resources. By adopting sustainable agricultural practices, including those that help remove additional carbon from the atmosphere, farmers can also help drive progress to address climate change.
For example, some agricultural businesses are innovating with agriculture data to help create a more sustainable future using
Azure Data Manager for Agriculture. By connecting farm data from disparate sources, this solution delivers actionable insights to help users build cutting-edge solutions and promote sustainable farming practices.
Smart grids: Optimizing energy management
As the energy sectors embarks on a global transition to
renewable energy, organizations will need innovations to help manage increasingly decentralized grids reliant on variable renewable energy sources. Traditional approaches to grid optimization—which use sensors, control systems, and conventional data analytics to balance supply and demand—are ill-equipped to handle the greater variability and intermittency of renewable and distributed energy sources.
Energy companies can also employ AI to help them transition to net zero. For example,
bp is using digital twin technology to identify opportunities for optimization and carbon reduction. “By using this digital twin to look at both past data and predict future data, it’s invaluable,” says David Boyd, Facilities Process Engineer at bp. “If this was rolled out across bp assets, we have the opportunity to reduce emissions by around 500,000 tons of CO2 equivalent every year.”
Early Warnings for All Initiative: Revolutionizing disaster warning systems
With the increasing strength and frequency of extreme weather events, it’s crucial to ensure that everyone has access to early warning systems. Using AI-powered tools, meteorologists can dramatically improve their predictions of extreme events at a greatly reduced cost.
In collaboration with the United Nations Early Warnings for All initiative, Microsoft is working to better understand the populations most at risk of extreme weather events and other threats, often due to climate change. These communities face major risks, including severe storms, heatwaves, floods, prolonged droughts, and rising sea levels. Using high-resolution satellite imagery combined with AI-powered technologies, government leaders can pinpoint homes that are
vulnerable to extreme weather destruction in high-risk areas and deliver faster disaster response and recovery.
Recyclable plastics: Accelerating sustainable plastic development
Conventional plastics made from fossil fuels contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, a deluge of plastic waste continues to degrade habitats on land and in the ocean. Researchers from the Microsoft
AI4Science Lab and the University of Washington are using generative AI models to design recyclable plastics using to replace specialized single-use plastics currently used in printed circuit boards.
Leak detection and monitoring: Helping cities conserve scarce drinking water
Water is a precious, finite resource and essential for life. To become a
water-positive world, world leaders will need to do more than reduce water use intensity and replenish water sources. It’s also about providing people across the globe with access to water and sanitation services, engaging in public policy, and driving innovation.
Microsoft has partnered with FIDO Tech to
deliver AI-powered leak detection and water management solutions for several water utilities worldwide. FIDO AI uses network-embedded AI acoustic sensors to identify and determine the size of leaks, providing valuable information on where, when, and how much water loss is happening. The sensors continue reporting data after repairs have been made, showing whether the repairs are working and how much water is saved. With continuous AI-powered monitoring, leaders can help prevent leakages and gain insights into how a network reacts in times of drought or high demand. Water utilities companies can optimize water usage across the distribution network using these AI solutions.
