New MIT Neural Network Architecture May Reduce Carbon Footprint by AI

Artificial Intelligence may seem transient, yet it always managed to have a controversial presence. Recently it raised concerns about its sustainability. In June 2019, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst study discovered that a single large (213 million parameters) Transformer-based neural network built using NAS (commonly used in machine translation) has produced around 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. This amount is equivalent to five times more than an average car produces in its lifespan. These massive consumption numbers are because of the energy needed to run specialized hardware like GPUs and TPUs for AI training and development.