eco2AI: Carbon Emissions Tracking of Machine Learning Models as the First Step Towards Sustainable AI
S. A. Budennyya,b,*, V. D. Lazarevb, N. N. Zakharenkoa, A. N. Korovinb, O. A. Plosskayaa,
D. V. Dimitrova, V. S. Akhripkina, I. V. Pavlova, I. V. Oseledetsb,c, I. S. Barsolad, I. V. Egorovd,
A. A. Kosterinad, and L. E. Zhukove
a Sber AI Lab, Moscow, Russia
b Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
c Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology,
Moscow, Russia
d Sber ESG, Moscow, Russia
e National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence to: *e-mail: sanbudenny@sberbank.ru
Received 28 October, 2022
Abstract—The size and complexity of deep neural networks used in AI applications continue to grow exponentially, significantly increasing energy consumption for training and inference by these models. We introduce an open-source package eco2AI to help data scientists and researchers to track the energy consumption and equivalent CO2 emissions of their models in a straightforward way. In eco2AI we focus on accurate tracking of energy consumption and regional CO2 emissions accounting. We encourage the research for community to search for new optimal Artificial Intelligence (AI) architectures with lower computational cost. The motivation also comes from the concept of AI-based greenhouse gases sequestrating cycle with both Sustainable AI and Green AI pathways. The code and documentation are hosted on Github under the Apache 2.0 license https://github.com/sb-ai-lab/Eco2AI.
Keywords: ESG, AI, sustainability, carbon footprint, ecology, CO2 emissions, GHG
DOI: 10.1134/S1064562422060230