Sriram Raghavan, Vice President, IBM Research AI spoke about ways to use AI to solve for big problems like climate change and predicting extreme weather events, and creating a talent pipeline for AI jobs of the future. AI for weather and climate is one area that IBM is actively exploring. In collaboration with NASA, we are developing an AI foundation model that combines IBM’s AI leadership and NASA’s Earth science expertise to offer significant advantages over existing technology. This foundation model aims to have several advantages over current AI models: greater data diversity, faster inferencing time, greater accessibility, and improving the accuracy of forecasting for other climate applications. A few sample applications of the model could include inferring high-res information from low-res data, identifying conditions conducive to everything from airplane turbulence to wildfires, and predicting meteorological phenomena. While AI poses risks, just like any technology, it can also be critical to preventing these kinds of events. Enhanced risk management, predictive capabilities, and real-time reporting are all ways that we can build more trusted and resilient AI models. However, the most important thing in understanding and assessing risk is information, which underscores the need for open innovation and information sharing. To this effect, IBM and Meta, along with over 50 organizations from across the globe, recently launched the AI Alliance to help advocate and support an open approach to AI innovation, including the development of open benchmarks, safety tools, and safety evaluation methodologies.

Full interview : IBM Research AI Vice President Sriram Raghavan on using AI for climate solutions and weather forecasts, the AI Alliance, sustainable AI and developing AI talent.