About the clean-IT Course Series clean-IT

This course explores the critical  intersection of AI and sustainability, highlighting how technological advancement can align with environmental responsibility. It offers insights into the dual nature of AI, noting its potential for increasing efficiency and driving sustainable innovation, while also acknowledging the significant energy consumption involved in training and applying AI models. In this course, we are not only examining the paradox of AI and sustainability but also provides actionable recommendations for incorporating sustainability into AI application development. By examining AI's transformative role and its environmental impact, the course offers a comprehensive understanding of how AI can be harnessed to support global sustainability goals effectively.

This course is part of the Sustainability in the Digital Age series, a collaborative project between colleagues from Stanford University, SAP and the Hasso Plattner Institute.

Digital systems offer a great opportunity to significantly reduce carbon emissions and can contribute to the efficient use of energy. However, all systems also need energy. This area of tension is addressed in the course: Sustainability in the digital age - Energy-Efficient Software Development. To effectively reduce the carbon footprint of digitalization, it is necessary to apply algorithmic efficiency and sustainability by design as guiding principles in digital engineering. We will introduce strategies to develop software that prioritizes minimized energy consumption through optimal coding and green testing practices. We will look at how the CO2 emissions of operating software applications can be measured and calculated. How to measure the performance and energy consumption of Large Language Models will be covered as well. Further we share approaches how to use advances in hardware technology and operate digital systems efficiently in data centers based on eco-friendly and cost-effective capacity management strategies.

This course is part of the Sustainability in the Digital Age series, a collaborative project between colleagues from Stanford University, SAP and the Hasso Plattner Institute.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers transformative potential across industries, but its development and deployment come with environmental costs. The course covers topics such as the carbon footprint of AI models, methods for measuring and reporting environmental impacts, and challenges in estimating the sustainability of AI technologies. Students will gain insights into energy and carbon accounting, along with case studies demonstrating how AI’s environmental footprint is assessed. The course aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between AI and the environment, equipping learners with knowledge to contribute to more sustainable AI practices.

This course is part of the Sustainability in the Digital Age series, a collaborative project between colleagues from Stanford University, SAP and the Hasso Plattner Institute.

Digitalization is a game changer in the pursuit of a sustainable future. The latest digital technologies and applications like cloud, AI, and mobile devices enable us to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and reduce carbon emissions in many sectors. Yet computer systems themselves have an immense energy requirement for their countless devices, data centers, applications and global networks. To effectively reduce the carbon footprint of digitalization, it is necessary to apply algorithmic efficiency and sustainability by design as guiding principles in digital engineering. The clean-IT Forum is the international platform to exchange ideas, recent research findings and applications to make digital technologies more energy-efficient.