Making AI Progress Sustainable from the Ground Up
Speaker: Dr. Adnan Mehonić
Artificial intelligence has achieved extraordinary milestones—from predicting protein structures to accelerating medical discoveries and transforming entire industries. Yet, as AI systems scale, a critical challenge emerges: sustainability. In this session, Dr. Adnan Mehonić explores why sustaining AI progress requires a rethink not just of algorithms, but of the very physics underlying computation.
The Hidden Cost of Intelligence
Modern AI is energy-intensive. As models grow larger and more complex, their electricity demand is rising faster than current computing paradigms can support sustainably. While discussions often focus on better algorithms or more powerful machines, the true limits are physical—rooted in how information is stored, moved, and processed at the level of devices and materials.
Dr. Mehonić emphasizes that sustainable AI cannot rely solely on software innovations; it requires engineering from the ground up, starting with the hardware itself.
Rethinking Hardware for Sustainable AI
This talk explores emerging solutions that bridge materials science, nanoelectronics, and brain-inspired architectures. By combining memory and computation in innovative ways, AI systems can become not only more powerful but fundamentally more energy-efficient.
Through examples from cutting-edge research, Dr. Mehonić shows how advances in hardware design can enable a new generation of sustainable, intelligent systems capable of scaling responsibly while minimizing environmental impact.
Toward a Sustainable AI Future
The session underscores a crucial insight: sustainable AI is an interdisciplinary challenge. To maintain rapid progress without compromising the planet, researchers and engineers must integrate physics, materials science, and computational design from the outset.
At Futures Leaders Summit, this keynote offers a roadmap for thinking about AI not just as software, but as a holistic system—one where sustainability, power, and performance coexist.