NVIDIA highlights innovative solutions for climate, environmental challenges

The GTC Sustainable Futures Showcase highlighted innovative solutions for climate and environmental challenges, combining AI with sustainable energy strategies to help businesses and communities become more resilient.

Opening the event, Tenika Versey, NVIDIA's Global Head of Sustainable Futures, set the tone by celebrating AI's role in sustainability.

"We're here to talk about the revolution happening in AI and climate innovation," she told the audience.

The event featured keynotes from industry leaders, including Billy Libby, CEO of Upper 90, who discussed creative financial strategies for sustainable innovation.

"Upper 90 helps founders own more of their company," Libby said. "We focus on helping businesses finance equipment and infrastructure with non-dilutive capital."

He highlighted the example of Crusoe Energy, a company that captures stranded energy to power sustainable data centres.

"Crusoe identified that more energy is wasted from flaring natural gas than Japan consumes in a year," Libby explained. "We helped them finance the generators required to harness this energy, reducing both costs and environmental impact."

Scope 3's Director of AI, Aya Seed, and Chief Marketing Officer, Christina Cubeta, outlined their approach to reducing AI's environmental footprint. "AI's energy demands are enormous," Kubeta explained. "By 2028, US data centres could consume 12% of the country's electricity — more than California, Florida, and New Jersey combined."

To address this, Scope 3 developed a platform that measures and optimises AI's environmental footprint.

"We've created an open-source methodology that tracks energy usage, material consumption, and hardware efficiency," Seed said. "Our platform identifies inefficiencies and offers recommendations for optimisation, allowing businesses to improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions."

Seed described a recent collaboration with NVIDIA Inception partner Taboola, which saw impressive environmental benefits. "Taboola's migration from CPUs to NVIDIA's GPUs resulted in a 62% reduction in carbon emissions and a 55% decrease in water usage," she said. "This is the type of impact we need to see more widely."

The showcase also featured Tomorrow.io, a company using AI to improve weather forecasting. CEO Shimon highlighted the risks posed by extreme weather events. "In the US alone, weather events caused over $50 billion in damage this year," he said.

"Despite this, many organisations lack dedicated weather risk management systems."

Tomorrow.io uses satellite data combined with AI to deliver highly accurate weather predictions.

"We launched satellites to fill the gaps in global weather data," Shimon explained. "Only 10% of the world has access to high-quality radar data, leaving billions of people vulnerable."

The platform combines real-time data with AI to provide organisations with precise forecasts. "We aim to make weather forecasting as actionable and automated as possible," Shimon said. "Just as cybersecurity systems are standard in businesses today, weather resilience systems must become the norm."

Professor Rosemary Knight from Stanford University presented the university's groundbreaking work in monitoring groundwater systems.

"Groundwater levels are declining worldwide," Knight said. "We need better ways to track and manage these vital resources."

Knight's team developed a sensor network that maps groundwater flow, enabling improved water management. "This technology is like MRI for the Earth," she said.

"We can now watch in real time as floodwaters recharge groundwater supplies." The data is used to inform strategies for storing excess floodwater underground, a potential solution to worsening drought conditions.

Allison Wolff, CEO of Vibrant Planet, discussed how her company's platform helps communities manage wildfire risks. "We have officially entered the era of mega-fires," Wolf said.

"Our technology identifies high-risk areas and helps determine the best prevention strategies."

Vibrant Planet's AI-driven platform uses machine learning to map vegetation patterns, fire risks, and environmental values. "We provide a dynamic system that allows users to prioritise actions like prescribed burns, mechanical thinning, or using goats to clear vegetation," Wolf explained.

Wolf shared a recent case study from the Angeles National Forest, where Vibrant Planet estimated that targeted treatments could have prevented $40 billion in property damage following the Eaton Fire. "A $9 million investment in preventive treatments could have avoided catastrophic losses," she said.

The event concluded with a closing address from David Gagliano, Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton.

Galiano stressed the importance of integrating power-efficient technologies into AI strategies. "Power is the biggest limiting factor for AI innovation," he said. "We're partnering with Prometheus Hydrogen to develop solid-state energy storage solutions that provide stable, scalable power for everything from edge computing to data centres."

To support ongoing innovation, NVIDIA awarded $25,000 grants to Tomorrow.io, Vibrant Planet, and Stanford's Pulse of the Planet project.

Each organisation also received an NVIDIA GeForce 5080 GPU to advance their work.

"AI's future isn't just about innovation," Seed concluded. "It's about ensuring that innovation is sustainable for generations to come."