Open Access

Thorsten Jelinek, Amit Bhave, Nicolas Buchoud, Michael Max Bühler, Patrick Glauner, Oliver Inderwildi, Markus Kraft, Charles Mok, Konrad Nübel, Minal Pathak, Shreya Some, Axel Voss

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) combined with cyber-physical systems (CPS) can play a vital role in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions across sectors. The transition from fossil fuels to renewables is achieved through electrification, introducing complexity in systems deployment, integration, and efficient orchestration of electrified economic systems. AI-driven CPS are uniquely suited to manage this complexity, potentially accelerating decarbonisation efforts. This Policy Brief advocates for the mainstreaming of AI-driven CPS for climate change risk mitigation. To effectively realise the Intelligent Decarbonation (IDC) potential, AI-driven CPS must be elevated to a global level of collaboration and coordination, fostering clear IDC principles and guidelines, capacity building and technology transfer. The importance of IDC governance is emphasised to avoid unwanted path dependency and to avert a technology-centric approach, which has proven to yield limited results. A shift from trustworthy to sustainable AI is necessary to eliminate AI’s own carbon footprint.