Sustainable Energy for All and IBM launch new AI solutions for energy and urban development.
At the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29), IBM and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) unveiled new publicly available artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions to inform greener urban development. sustainable for cities and communities around the world.
COP29, taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, until November 22, focuses on ways to accelerate action to address the global climate crisis.
According to the two organizations, the recently launched AI solution allows policymakers and legislators to map urbanization and identify the energy and infrastructure needs of developing cities.
Modeling Urban Growth (MUG) is an open source AI model that predicts where cities will grow.
The model is trained and validates historical data from satellite images; geographic data, such as slope and elevation; demographic data; and structural data, such as road layout, combining the data into a time series.
MUG helps users map future urbanization and associated infrastructure needs, enabling decision-makers to prioritize developing communities and regions that need support for issues such as electrification and energy services.
MUG is an AI Alliance project, publicly available and open source on GitHub.
The model is currently trained on data from Africa including: Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Rwanda and Malawi.
However, the model is designed to be retrained by users in any country in the world, using publicly available data.
On GitHub, MUG includes an explanatory guide on running code and making predictions using the same or different datasets, further expanding access for developers and decision makers.
John Matogo, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for Africa and the Middle East at IBM, said: “Collaborating with organizations like SEforALL, our IBM Sustainability Accelerator program, helps us unlock innovation and to work more closely within communities to tackle some of our biggest challenges, particularly around sustainable development. energy and sustainable urban development.
Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for SEforALL and Co-Chair of UN-Energy, added: “We believe that integrating AI into energy sector planning and evidence – in especially for developing countries, will go a long way to improving the situation. design comprehensive solutions to many of the development challenges currently facing countries in the Global South and their populations.
“The Open Building Insights toolwhich SEforALL developed in collaboration with IBM, will help energy planners overcome critical challenges related to the lack of data to inform energy access and energy transition interventions, and better deliver results for those who use them. need it most.