Sparklines

The Energy Transition Needs Artificial Intelligence

Long-term modeling of our future energy system will require artificial intelligence functions.

Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
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Imagine if you will a network of n things, each of which is connected to each other. When n is a small number, there are only a small number of total connections, but as n grows, the number of total connections grows more. In a small network — where n = five, the size of a basketball team — the number of total possible connections is something an individual can grasp. Scale that up to the size of even a soccer team (or, football for most of the world) where a network of n = 11, and the connections are difficult to visualize on an individual basis. Scale it up further, to a network of thousands or millions of things, and it becomes impossible.