C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute Announces AI for Energy and Climate Security Grantees
C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI) today announced the second round of C3.ai DTI awards, focused on using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and digital transformation to advance energy efficiency and lead the way to a lower-carbon, higher-efficiency economy that will ensure energy and climate security.
C3.ai DTI issued this call for proposals in February 2021, and received 52 submissions. A rigorous peer review process led to 21 awards for research proposals to improve resilience, sustainability, and efficiency through such measures as carbon sequestration, carbon markets, hydrocarbon production, distributed renewables, and cybersecurity, among other topics.
The Institute awarded a total of $4.4 million in cash from this call for proposals, the second call the Institute has released since the organization’s launch in March 2020. In addition to cash awards, research teams gain access to up to $2 million in Azure Cloud computing resources, up to 800,000 supercomputing node hours on the Blue Waters petascale supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, up to 25 million computing hours on supercomputers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), and free, unlimited access to the C3 AI® Suite hosted on the Microsoft Azure Cloud.
“The world’s energy infrastructure will need to undergo radical changes to address the impact of global energy generation,” said Thomas M. Siebel, chairman and CEO of C3 AI. “In the face of this crisis, the Institute is proud to bring together the best and brightest minds and provide direction and leadership to support objective analysis and AI-based, data-driven science for climate security.”
“Pursuing a sustainable future via advances in science and engineering is absolutely critical,” said Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientific Officer at Microsoft. “We’re deeply enthusiastic to join with the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute to support frontier research on energy and climate at leading universities.”
The 21 projects were each awarded $100,000 to $250,000, for an initial period of one year, in one of nine categories, as listed below by project title, principal investigator, and affiliation.
-
Sustainability - Applying AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics to support sustainability initiatives for energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions:
- Learning in Routing Games for Sustainable Electromobility (Henrik Sandberg, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
- AI-Driven Materials Discovery Framework for Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Electrochemical Separations (Xiao Su, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
-
AI for Carbon Sequestration - Applying AI/ML techniques to increase the scale and reduce costs of carbon sequestration:
- Optimization of Agricultural Management for Soil Carbon Sequestration Using Deep Reinforcement Learning and Large-Scale Simulations (Naira Hovakimyan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- Affordable Gigaton-Scale Carbon Sequestration: Navigating Autonomous Seaweed Growth Platforms by Leveraging Complex Ocean Currents and Machine Learning (Claire Tomlin, University of California, Berkeley)
-
AI for Advanced Energy and Carbon Markets - Enabling dynamic, automated, and real-time pricing of energy-generation sources:
- Quantifying Carbon Credit Over the U.S. Midwestern Cropland Using AI-Based Data-Model Fusion (Kaiyu Guan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- The Role of Interconnectivity and Strategic Behavior in Electric Power System Reliability (Ali Hortacsu, University of Chicago)
-
Cybersecurity of Power and Energy Infrastructure - Leveraging AI/ML techniques to improve the cybersecurity of critical power and energy assets, along with smart connected factories and homes:
- Private Cyber-Secure Data-Driven Control of Distributed Energy Resources (Subhonmesh Bose, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- Cyberattacks and Anomalies for Power Systems: Defense Mechanism and Grid Fortification via Machine Learning Techniques (Javad Lavaei, University of California, Berkeley)
- A Joint ML+Physics-Driven Approach for Cyber-Attack Resilience in Grid Energy Management (Amritanshu Pandey, Carnegie Mellon University)
-
Smart Grid Analytics - Applying AI and other analytic approaches to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of grid transmission and distribution operations:
- Scalable Data-Driven Voltage Control of Ultra-Large-Scale Power Networks (Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- Offline Reinforcement Learning for Energy-Efficient Power Grids (Sergey Levine, University of California, Berkeley)
-
Distributed Energy Resource Management - Applying AI to increase the penetration and use of distributed renewables:
- Machine Learning for Power Electronics-Enabled Power Systems: A Unified ML Platform for Power Electronics, Power Systems, and Data Science (Minjie Chen, Princeton University)
- Sharing Mobile Energy Storage: Platforms and Learning Algorithms (Kameshwar Poolla, University of California, Berkeley)
- Data-Driven Control and Coordination of Smart Converters for Sustainable Power System Using Deep Reinforcement Learning (Qianwen Xu, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
-
AI for Improved Natural Catastrophe Risk Assessment - Applying AI to improve modeling of natural catastrophe risks from future weather-related events (e.g., tropical storms, wildfires, and floods):
- AI for Natural Catastrophes: Tropical Cyclone Modeling and Enabling the Resilience Paradigm (Arindam Banerjee, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- Multi-Scale Analysis for Improved Risk Assessment of Wildfires Facilitated by Data and Computation (Marta Gonzalez, University of California, Berkeley)
-
Resilient Energy Systems - Addressing how the use of AI/ML techniques and markets for energy and carbon introduce new vulnerabilities:
- A Learning-Based Influence Model Approach to Cascading Failure Prediction (Eytan Modiano, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Reinforcement Learning for a Resilient Electric Power System (Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, University of California, Berkeley)
-
AI for Improved Climate Change Modeling - Use of AI/ML to address climate change modeling and adaptation:
- Machine Learning to Reduce Uncertainty in the Effects of Fires on Climate (Hamish Gordon, Carnegie Mellon University)
- AI-Based Prediction of Urban Climate and Its Impact on Built Environments (Wei Liu, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
- Interpretable Machine Learning Models to Improve Forecasting of Extreme-Weather-Causing Tropical Monster Storms (Da Yang, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
“From wildfires to rising seas to monster storms crippling our energy systems, increasingly extreme weather clearly represents a severe threat to our economy, infrastructure, and national security,” said S. Shankar Sastry, C3.ai DTI Co-Director and Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. “Improving climate resilience will require profound changes powered by a new era of technology like those C3.ai DTI is supporting today.”
“A number of energy companies and utilities have used enterprise AI to transform their operations, but as we can see, there’s an even greater need for resilience to cyberattacks and large environmental disruptions,” said R. Srikant, C3.ai DTI Co-Director and Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “These projects are designed with those goals in mind.”
Award Criteria
C3.ai DTI selects research proposals that inspire cooperative research and advance machine learning and other AI subdisciplines. Projects are peer-reviewed on the basis of scientific merit, prior accomplishments of the principal investigator and co-principal investigators, the use of AI, machine learning, data analytics, and cloud computing in the research project, and the suitability for testing the methods at scale. Visit C3DTI.ai to learn more about the Institute’s programs, award opportunities, and selected research proposals.
About C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute
Established in March 2020 by C3 AI, Microsoft, and leading universities, the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute is a research consortium dedicated to accelerating the benefits of artificial intelligence for business, government, and society. The Institute engages the world’s leading scientists to conduct research and train practitioners in the new Science of Digital Transformation – operating at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, internet of things, big data analytics, organizational behavior, public policy, and ethics.
The ten C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute consortium member universities and laboratories are: University of California, Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Stanford University, and University of Chicago. Additional industry partners include AstraZeneca, Baker Hughes, and Shell.
To support the Institute, C3 AI is providing the Institute $57,250,000 in cash contributions over the first five years of operation. C3 AI and Microsoft will contribute an additional $310 million of in-kind support, including use of the C3 AI® Suite and Microsoft Azure computing, storage, and technical resources to support C3.ai DTI research.
About C3.ai, Inc.
C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) is the Enterprise AI application software company that accelerates digital transformation for organizations globally. C3 AI delivers a family of fully integrated products: C3 AI® Suite, an end-to-end platform for developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI applications; C3 AI Applications, a portfolio of industry-specific SaaS AI applications; C3 AI CRM, a suite of industry-specific CRM applications designed for AI and machine learning; and C3 AI Ex Machina, a no-code AI solution to apply data science to everyday business problems. The core of the C3 AI offering is an open, model-driven AI architecture that dramatically simplifies data science and application development. Learn more at: www.c3.ai.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210610005231/en/
Contact information
C3.ai DTI Contact
Kap Stann
Communications Manager, C3.ai DTI @ Berkeley
(510) 295-9685
kstann@berkeley.edu
C3 AI Public Relations
Edelman
Lisa Kennedy
415-914-8336
pr@c3.ai
Investor Relations
ir@c3.ai
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
SCENTMATIC's AI "KAORIUM" Debuts at THAMEEN Fragrance Launch in London's Selfridges4.7.2025 12:13:00 EEST | Press release
SCENTMATIC Inc., a leader in scent digitalization, introduced its AI-powered scent-to-language system, KAORIUM, at the THAMEEN Fragrance new product launch event. This pivotal event took place from June 5 to 11, 2025, at Selfridges department store in London, UK. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703662207/en/ State of exhibition Global Expansion: KAORIUM Establishes UK Presence Europe leads the global fragrance market, with the UK projected to reach US$2.82 billion by 2033. Recognizing this, SCENTMATIC is rapidly expanding its international footprint. In May 2024, SCENTMATIC established its overseas subsidiary, KAORIUM, in London, appointing industry expert Ben Yanoushek as CEO. Official UK operations commenced on February 1, 2025, with the launch of its dedicated website: www.kaorium.com. KAORIUM Trialed at "Florentine Diamond" Launch Event The "Florentine Diamond" launch event for luxury brand THAMEEN Frag
Global Tourism Surging Ahead of Economic Growth, With Visits to Hit 30 Billion by 20344.7.2025 02:00:00 EEST | Press release
The World Economic Forum has today published a new report forecasting that the travel and tourism industry is projected to serve 30 billion tourist trips by 2034. Travel and Tourism at a Turning Point: Principles for Transformative Growth, produced in collaboration with Kearney and the Ministry of Tourism Saudi Arabia, reveals a projected $16 trillion contribution to global GDP by the same year—representing more than 11% of the total world economy, according to World Travel & Tourism Council estimates. The report also found that the sector is expanding 1.5 times faster than the global economy, generating significant commercial opportunities as long as the mounting challenges of climate change, labour shortages and infrastructure gaps are addressed. Inbound and outbound trips increasing fast Asia is on track to become the world’s fastest-growing tourism economy, with the direct travel and tourism GDP contribution expected to exceed 7% across the region by 2034. Notably, India and China
The 2025-2026 World Branding Awards Animalis Edition Honouring Leading Pet and Animal Brands Globally3.7.2025 22:00:00 EEST | Press release
The 2025-2026 World Branding Awards Animalis Edition marked its fifth instalment, bringing together leading pet and animal brands from all around the world. These brands were celebrated for their outstanding achievements, earning recognition as National, Regional, and Global Winners. The awards ceremony, held at Vienna's prestigious Hofburg Palace, welcomed winners across diverse categories, including pet food, retail, wellness, pet exhibitions, and aquatic products. Mounia Berrada-Gouzi expertly hosted the evening, which culminated in a grand celebration of brand excellence. “The Animalis Edition of the World Branding Awards recognises brands that have achieved the highest distinction—genuine recognition in the hearts and minds of consumers. Tonight, we honour those whose names resonate globally, whose values inspire loyalty, and whose presence defines excellence in the pet and animal industry,” said Richard Rowles, Chairman of the World Branding Forum. Out of over 950 brands nominate
Venture Global Announces 20-Year Sales and Purchase Agreement with PETRONAS3.7.2025 15:59:00 EEST | Press release
Today, Venture Global, Inc. (NYSE: VG) announced the execution of a new 20-year Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with PETRONAS LNG Ltd. (PLL), a subsidiary of the Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company, PETRONAS. Under the terms of the SPA, PETRONAS will purchase 1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Venture Global’s third facility, CP2 LNG, for 20 years. This builds upon Venture Global’s existing agreement with PETRONAS for 1 MTPA of LNG supply from Plaquemines LNG. PETRONAS, a world-class partner in the LNG industry, joins other CP2 LNG customers in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world in a strategically important project to global energy supply and security. To date, approximately 10.75 MTPA of the 14.4 MTPA nameplate capacity for CP2 Phase One has been sold. About Venture Global Venture Global is a long-term, low-cost provider of U.S. LNG sourced from resource rich North American natural gas basins. Venture Global’s business includes assets ac
Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Novotech as 2025 Global Biotech CRO Company of the Year3.7.2025 15:05:00 EEST | Press release
In recognition of its innovation, client-focused delivery, and global impact, Novotech has been awarded the 2025 Global Biotechnology Contract Research Organization (CRO) Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703950144/en/ Novotech Wins Global CRO Award Novotech is a globally recognized full-service clinical CRO and scientific advisory firm, trusted by biotech and small- to mid-sized pharmaceutical companies to advance their drug development programs at every phase. With a global footprint spanning Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe, Novotech supports over 5,000 clinical trial sites and a distributed team of experts delivering seamless, end-to-end solutions across geographies. “Novotech is redefining biotech-focused clinical research through AI-driven innovation, global expansion, and a client-embedded partnership model. With a clear vision to be the CRO of choice for
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom