Today, Salesforce — in collaboration with Hugging
Face, Cohere and Carnegie
Mellon University — launched the AI Energy
Score, a
first-of-its-kind benchmarking tool that enables AI developers and users to
evaluate, identify, and compare the energy consumption of AI models.
Salesforce also becomes the first AI model developer to disclose the
energy-efficiency data of its proprietary
models
under the new framework.
“Reducing AI energy consumption lowers operational costs, optimizes
infrastructure, and enhances long-term sustainability and profitability,” says
Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief
Impact Officer at Salesforce. “We are proud to work with industry leaders to
build a more transparent AI ecosystem.”
In a recent Capgemini Research Institute study, almost half of execs admit
their use of generative AI has fueled their company’s GHG
emissions;
42 percent have had to re-examine their climate goals because of the
technology’s resource
consumption;
and nearly three-quarters find it challenging to measure the technology’s
footprint due to limited data/transparency from providers and the industry lacks
a methodology around how to account for its environmental footprint.
As Niklas Sundberg, Chief
Digital Officer and SVP at global transport and logistics company
Kuehne+Nagel, has pointed
out:
“You should be able to ask Copilot or
ChatGPT
what the carbon footprint of your last query is, but none of the tools will give
you a response to that question at the moment.”
Now, the AI Energy Score aims to address this lack of transparency. Similar to
how ENERGY
STAR
transformed energy-efficiency standards for appliances and electronics, this
initiative establishes a clear, trusted benchmark for AI model sustainability.
“The AI Energy Score represents a major milestone for sustainable AI. By
creating a transparent rating system, we address a key blocker for reducing the
environmental impact of AI,” Dr. Sasha
Luccioni, AI & Climate Lead at
French-American machine learning company Hugging Face. “We’re thrilled to launch
this project and look forward to seeing wider adoption.”
The AI Energy Score will debut at this week’s AI Action
Summit. By enhancing
transparency, the score can drive market preference for efficient models and
incentivize sustainable AI development. Recognized by the French
Government
and the Paris Peace Forum for
its transformative potential, the AI Energy Score features:
-
Standardized energy ratings: A standardized framework for measuring and
comparing AI model energy efficiency.
-
Public leaderboard: A comprehensive
leaderboard that
features scores for 10 common AI tasks — including text generation, image
generation and summarization — performed by 166 models, including
Salesforce’s
SFR-Embedding,
xLAM, and
SF-TextBase.
-
Benchmarking portal: A platform where AI developers can submit their
open or proprietary AI models to be evaluated and added to the leaderboard.
Open models can be automatically tested, while closed models can be
evaluated through a secured testing sandbox.
-
Recognizable energy use label: A 1- to 5-star label that rates AI model
energy use, with five stars indicating the highest efficiency. This helps
developers and users easily identify and choose more sustainable models.
Once rated, AI developers can generate standardized labels to share their
models’ energy score, with built-in guidance on the proper label display for
visibility and impact.
“The AI Energy Score exemplifies the missions of the AI Action Summit by
tackling a pressing societal issue — AI transparency and sustainability —
through bold innovation and global collaboration,” says Bruno
Bonnell, France’s General Secretary
for Investment. “We are proud to showcase this groundbreaking initiative at the
Summit, as it stands as a powerful testament to the ingenuity of the global
academic and industry ecosystem and a rallying call for collective action
towards responsible AI development.”
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Feb 10, 2025 9am EST / 6am PST / 2pm GMT / 3pm CET