C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute Announces CFP to Advance AI for Energy and Climate Security
The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute invites scholars, software developers, and researchers to address the challenge of re-envisioning energy systems with artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation to lead the way to a lower-carbon, higher-efficiency economy that will enhance both energy and climate security.
“Mitigating the impact of global energy generation will require a massive transformation of the world’s energy infrastructure,” said Thomas M. Siebel, chairman and CEO of C3 AI, a leading enterprise AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. “This call for proposals covers topics that aim to provide safer, cleaner, lower cost, and more reliable energy through the application of AI.”
The University of Chicago is one of six academic founding partners working with AI software provider C3.ai and Microsoft to focus scientific efforts on new technologies and urgent applications.
Immediate Call for Proposals: AI and Digital Transformation for Energy and Climate Security
Topics for research awards may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Sustainability: Applying AI, machine learning, and advanced analytic techniques to support sustainability initiatives for energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions
- AI for Carbon Sequestration: Applying AI/ML techniques to increase the scale and reduce the cost of carbon sequestration
- AI for Leaks and Emissions Detection: Applying advanced AI/ML techniques for large-scale emissions detection, facility-level data reconciliation and gap analysis for emissions sensors, prediction of emissions risk, and analysis and optimization of flaring intensity across upstream and downstream operations
- Safe Hydrocarbon Production and Transportation Infrastructure: Applying analytic and AI/ML modeling techniques to increase the safety and reduce emissions from oil and gas extraction, petrochemical production, and hydrocarbon transportation
- AI for Advanced Energy and Carbon Markets: Enabling dynamic, automated, and real-time pricing of energy generation sources
- Cybersecurity of Power and Energy Infrastructure: Leveraging AI/ML techniques to improve the cybersecurity of our critical power and energy assets, as well as smart connected factories and homes
- Smart Grid Analytics: Applying AI and other analytic approaches to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of grid transmission and distribution operations
- Distributed Energy Resource Management: Applying AI to increase the penetration and use of distributed renewables
- AI for Energy-Efficient Buildings and Factories: Leveraging AI techniques for advanced building and factory control to improve energy efficiency
- AI for Improved Natural Catastrophe Risk Assessment: Applying AI to improve modeling of natural catastrophe risks from future weather-related events (e.g., tropical storms, wildfires, and floods)
- Resilient Energy Systems: Addressing how the use of AI/ML techniques and markets for energy and carbon introduce new vulnerabilities
- AI for Improved Climate Change Modeling: Use of AI/ML to address climate change modeling and adaptation
“The energy industry is at a critical inflection point to accelerate delivery of cleaner, safer energy while meeting growing demand,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes, an energy technology company serving energy and industrial customers worldwide. “We are excited about our partnership with the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute and the impact these funded research projects will have in advancing AI at scale for the energy transition.”
This second call for proposals is open now, with a submission deadline of March 29, 2021. Researchers are invited to learn more about C3.ai DTI and how to submit their proposals for consideration at C3DTI.ai. Selected proposals will be announced in mid-May, with start dates of June 1, 2021.
Up to $5 million in cash awards will be funded from this second call, ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 each. In addition to cash awards, C3.ai DTI recipients will be provided with significant cloud computing, supercomputing, data access, and AI software resources and technical support provided by Microsoft and C3 AI. This will include unlimited use of the C3 AI® Suite, access to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, access to the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and access to scientific computing resources at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).
Establishing the New Science of Digital Transformation
C3.ai DTI focuses its research on AI, machine learning, IoT, big data analytics, human factors, organizational behavior, ethics, and public policy. The Institute supports the development of ML algorithms, data security, and cybersecurity techniques. C3.ai DTI research analyzes new business operation models, develops methods of implementing organizational change management and protecting privacy, and amplifies the dialogue around the ethics and public policy of AI.
About C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute
C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute represents an innovative vision to take AI, ML, IoT, and big data research in a consortium model to a level that cannot be achieved by any one institution alone. Jointly managed and hosted by the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, C3.ai DTI attracts the world’s leading scientists to join in a coordinated and innovative effort to advance the digital transformation of business, government, and society, and establish the new Science of Digital Transformation. To support the Institute, C3 AI will provide $57,250,000 in cash contributions over the first five years of operation. C3 AI and Microsoft will contribute an additional $310 million in-kind, including use of the C3 AI Suite and Microsoft Azure computing, storage, and technical resources to support C3.ai DTI research.
