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Second Green AI Summit at Harvard and Boston University Successfully Convened
Boston, MA (April 25-26, 2025) – The Green AI Summit 2025, held across Harvard University and Boston University, concluded after two days of intensive discussions, bringing together global leaders from academia, industry, and policy. Organized by the Green AI Institute and the Harvard Undergraduate AI and Sustainability Group, and co-sponsored by the Boston University Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE) along with numerous Harvard and external partners, the summit tackled the critical theme of "Green AI for Global Sustainable Development."
The event aimed to foster collaboration and chart actionable strategies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and sustainability, addressing the urgent environmental challenges posed by AI's rapid growth while exploring its potential as a tool for positive change.
Day 1: Harvard University Hosts Opening Discussions
Day 1: Harvard University Hosts Opening Discussions
The summit commenced at Harvard's Gutman Conference Center with introductions and Opening Remarks setting a tone of urgency and opportunity. Keynote speakers Senator Edward Markey (via video), Secretary Tomas Lamanauskas (ITU), Vice Provost James Stock (Harvard), David Havelick and Sarah Craig (Harvard Sustainability), and Jerry Huang (Green AI Institute) discussed AI's dual environmental role, its economic potential, the worsening climate crisis, university sustainability initiatives, and the need for policy and collaboration. Mr. Huang also launched the Institute's second white paper on global data center siting.
Panel 1: AI and Data Center Energy Usage and Environmental Impact, moderated by Professor Le Xie (Harvard), delved into the environmental costs of AI infrastructure. Panelists Francesca Dominici (Harvard), KJ Joshi (Hitachi), Carole-Jean Wu (Meta), Noman Bashir (MIT), and Jiaqi Liang (Online, Tencent) explored energy and water consumption, carbon emissions, the impact of embodied carbon in hardware, cooling system innovations (waterless, immersion), grid reliability concerns, efficiency efforts at major tech companies, and the challenges of scaling data centers sustainably, including supply chain and power availability constraints.
Following the panel, Zhaoyang (Roger) Wang (Online, Alibaba Cloud) delivered a Keynote Speech detailing Alibaba Cloud's efforts in open-sourcing AI models, achieving carbon neutrality goals through sustainable infrastructure (PUE improvements, clean energy adoption), and deploying AI for sustainability applications like grid resilience forecasting and industrial decarbonization, referencing their ANGEL research collaboration.
The Initiatives Launching session highlighted efforts to scale Green AI. Jeremy Renshaw (EPRI) introduced the Open Power AI Consortium, a global collaboration focused on developing efficient, domain-specific AI models for the power sector using open-source data and sandboxes.
Professor Le Xie (Harvard) presented Harvard SEAS's "Power and AI Initiative" (PAI), researching the crucial two-way interaction between AI capabilities and power system needs.
Paulo Carvao (Harvard Kennedy School) discussed the US AI policy landscape and proposed a dynamic governance model involving standards, compliance, and accountability to foster innovation responsibly.
After lunch, Panel 2: Towards a Low-Carbon AI and Data Center Ecosystem, moderated by Andreas Klaube (EPRI), explored solutions for reducing the carbon footprint of the digital backbone. Speakers Junhui Zhao (Eversource), Varun Sivaram (CFR), Peng Gao (Harvard), and Shaolei Ren (Online, UC Riverside) discussed energy-efficient infrastructure, renewable energy adoption, demand flexibility, the role of AI in utility operations (like asset inspection and outage management), policy frameworks, environmental justice considerations related to infrastructure siting, and the importance of system-wide efficiency thinking.
Panel 3: Next-Generation Computing Hardware, moderated by Professor Gage Hills (Harvard), looked beyond current silicon. Panelists Nate Gemelke (QuEra Computing), Professor Ajay Joshi (BU & Lightmatter), and Olivier Ezratty (Online, Quantum Energy Initiative) discussed the potential and challenges of advanced electronic integration (3D stacking), optical computing and interconnects (photonic advantages in efficiency and embodied carbon), and quantum computing (unique capabilities, but current limitations in size, speed, energy use, and fault tolerance). The discussion emphasized the need to integrate sustainability considerations early in the design of these future technologies.
A series of Lightning Talks showcased emerging innovations. KJ Joshi (Hitachi) detailed AI data center design trends (location, scale, power, cooling).
Jennifer Turliuk (MIT) presented a framework for analyzing AI's net climate impact, balancing harms and benefits.
Monica Wang (SJTU) discussed AI's transformative role in education and fostering decentralized innovation.
Can Hankendi (BU) introduced the Carbon Meter tool for estimating data center footprints.
The final panel of the day, Panel 4: Green AI and Data Center Policy and Investment, moderated by Karen Clopton (formerly CA PUC), focused on accelerating sustainable AI ecosystems. Panelists Ari Peskoe (Harvard Law), Galen Nelson (MassCEC), Vernon Turner (Cognizant), Benjamin Sovacool (BU IGS), and Klára Talabér-Ritz (Online, European Commission) explored public-private partnerships, financial incentives (like green bonds), regulatory frameworks (including the EU AI Act), the role of state versus federal policy in the US, environmental justice, and defining/measuring sustainable AI practices. Day 1 concluded with a Launching Ceremony and networking.
Day 2: Focusing Solutions at Boston University
The summit reconvened at BU's Center for Computing & Data Sciences. Keynote Speeches featured Dean Elise Morgan (BU Engineering) on the power of convergent research, Melissa Lavinson (MA EEA) on state-level energy transformation challenges exacerbated by AI demand, President Emeritus Robert A. Brown (BU) on the history and future of university collaboration in high-performance computing and AI, and Professor Yonggang Wen (Online, NTU Singapore) offering a global perspective on the AI-sustainability nexus and potential future solutions.
Panel 5: Efficient and Responsible AI, moderated by Yasaman Khazaeni (Rue Gilt Groupe), highlighted practical technology solutions. Speakers Paulo Carvao (Harvard), Jay Jackson (Oracle), Priya Donti (MIT), Professor Kate Saenko (BU/Meta), Stephan Klinger (LGP Law), and Shreyank N Gowda (Online, U. Nottingham) discussed the need for a holistic view of Green AI (efficiency, positive applications, avoiding harmful uses), techniques like parameter/data efficient learning and edge deployment, the challenges of end-to-end optimization within companies, and the crucial role of open source in fostering transparency and innovation.
Panel 6: AI and the Grid - Complex Interactions, moderated by Professor Ayse Coskun (BU), dove into the specifics of the AI-grid relationship. Panelists Hendrik Hamann (Stony Brook/BNL), Elli Nkatou (Eversource), Professor Junwei Cao (Tsinghua University), and Tyler Norris (Duke University) explored AI use cases (forecasting, grid optimization), data access and quality hurdles, the significant potential of data center flexibility and demand response to alleviate grid stress, and the technical and regulatory challenges in implementing such flexibility effectively.
The final panel, Panel 7: AI for Global Sustainable Development, moderated by Professor Suchi Gopal (BU), broadened the scope to global impacts. Panelists Nathan Phillips (BU), Hessann Farooqi (BCAN), Ke Zhao (CICC), and Rakib Anam (UN Foundation/Climate Cardinals) discussed AI's role in smart cities, environmental justice issues related to infrastructure, China's green finance and technology landscape, and the critical importance of youth engagement, linguistic accessibility (highlighted by the Climate Cardinals example), and empowering local communities worldwide to build their own sustainable solutions using AI.
Closing Thoughts
The summit concluded with Closing Remarks from Professor Ayse Coskun (BU), Karen Clopton, and Jerry Huang (Green AI Institute). They synthesized the rich discussions, emphasizing the complexity of the Green AI challenge, the need for critical thinking about technology's framing and purpose, and the power of collaboration across all sectors. The event underscored that while AI presents significant environmental hurdles, its potential as a tool for accelerating sustainable development is vast, provided its development and deployment are guided by shared values, robust policy, continuous innovation, and global cooperation. The Green AI Institute invited continued engagement through its research, journal, chapters, and future events.
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