Two leaders in sustainable AI have left their tech jobs to start a new venture that aims to help companies mitigate AI’s environmental footprint.
The Sustainable AI Group (SAIG), which launched on Wednesday, is led by Sasha Luccioni, Hugging Face’s former AI and climate lead, and Salesforce’s former head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov. The new research and advisory firm, based in Montréal, plans to work with businesses to help them square their increasing AI use with their sustainability goals.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is de-risk AI in general,” Gamazaychikov told BetaKit in an interview. “The structure [AI] is on is incompatible with sustainability, and that presents a lot of business risks.”
Boris Gamazaychikov, SAIG
“The structure [AI] is on is incompatible with sustainability, and that presents a lot of business risks.”
Training and using generative AI models on a large scale relies on computing power supplied by data centres. Asking ChatGPT a question can use on average up to 10 times the electricity of a Google search, according to the International Energy Agency. That number can be even higher with image and video generation. Goldman Sachs research estimates that AI-driven energy consumption by data centres will grow by 160 percent, to reach between three and four percent of the world’s electricity, by the end of this decade.
Part of the issue for businesses tracking this, Luccioni told BetaKit, is a lack of transparency around how much energy AI models consume. The definition of an “AI life cycle,” from mining critical minerals for chips to querying ChatGPT, also widely varies, according to a paper in Computers and Society that Luccioni co-authored this month.
While she acknowledged that some big tech companies have gotten better at disclosing this type of information, Luccioni said the AI industry is missing a clear set of standards. That’s where SAIG hopes to work with companies to establish reporting standards and liaise between large AI companies and the companies buying their products.
“We think there’s a need to have a trusted, independent, third party to be there, advising these buyers,” Gamazaychikov added.
Luccioni joined New York-based open-source AI company Hugging Face after studying under prominent researcher and AI “godfather” Yoshua Bengio during her postdoctoral degree at Université de Montréal. Gamazaychikov worked as an environmental engineer for the US government, then moved into sustainability management at San Francisco-based Stok, eventually leading Salesforce’s AI sustainability strategy. The two had worked together previously on the AI Energy Score, a Hugging Face initiative that ranked open-source AI models to compare their efficiency.
The growing implementation of AI tools within businesses over the past few years has coincided with a waning focus on environmental, social, and governance principles in the corporate world—particularly driven by hostility from the US government.
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“I see a lot of people talking about it, but that hasn’t translated into corporate organization choices,” Luccioni said. For example, internal AI usage dashboards might indicate the number of tokens a team is using, but not how many kilowatt hours of energy those tokens burned through.
The co-founders said that SAIG’s offerings will include open research studies, advisory services for companies, and building tailored tools to track AI’s environmental impacts—not with pre-set software packages, but through collaborative work. They plan to onboard a few research engineers in the coming months.
SAIG is already working with North European and European clients across tech, finance, and media, as well as Montréal AI institute Mila. The co-founders see Canada as the perfect place to set up shop, allowing them to serve US and European clients while in an environment that encourages sustainability research.
“It would be hard to start a sustainable AI group in the States right now,” Luccioni said. “I think Canada is still a safe space for that kind of work.”
Feature image courtesy SAIG. Image by Clara Lacasse.