“We are on a path where the effects of climate change won’t be fully known until it is too late to do anything about it,” says Jennifer Turliuk MBA ’25, who is working to help policymakers, scientists, and enterprises consider the multifaceted costs and benefits of generative AI. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to innovate and make AI systems less carbon-intense.”
MIT News Office
  |  

Responding to the climate impact of generative AI

Explosive growth of AI data centers is expected to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers are now seeking solutions to reduce these environmental harms.
Marcelo Coelho (left) and the Geolectric Lantern
MIT News Office
  |  

A beacon of light

A lantern created in the Design Intelligence Lab creates sustainable alternatives for consumer electronics.
David Whelihan has traveled to the Arctic over the past few years to test prototype low-cost sensor nodes designed to monitor loss in Arctic sea ice extent and thickness.
MIT News Office
  |  

Q&A: On the challenges of operating in the Arctic

How does one access and conduct research in one of the world’s harshest and most demanding environments? Lincoln Laboratory undersea systems engineer David Whelihan explains.
A new software and hardware toolkit called SustainaPrint can help users strategically combine strong and weak filaments to achieve the best of both worlds. Instead of printing an entire object with high-performance plastic, the system analyzes a model, predicts where the object is most likely to experience stress, and reinforces those zones with stronger material.
MIT News Office
  |  

A greener way to 3D print stronger stuff

MIT CSAIL researchers developed SustainaPrint, a system that reinforces only the weakest zones of eco-friendly 3D prints, achieving strong results with less plastic.