Policy project: Sustainable Tech: How might we make digital infrastructure (and AI as a new part of it) more sustainable?

Digital infrastructure produces an increasing amount of CO2 that contributes to global warming and will keep growing for years to come. AI and other new technologies (such as blockchain) increase this tendency. Awareness on the actual energy footprint of IT usage and options to improve it are still rare. 

Theresa Züger is head of the Public Interest AI research group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The group is concerned with the question of how AI can serve the public interest and which technical and social criteria must be fulfilled for this to happen. She is also lead of the AI & Society Lab. The Lab was launched by HIIG in 2020 and is an inter- and transdisciplinary research lab at the intersection of academia, industry and civil society. Theresa’s research focuses on the political dimensions of digital technologies and cultures, with particular interest in questions of democratic theory.

(As of July 2022)