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Working with Third-Party Climate Action Veteran Natural Capital Partners, John Snow Labs Minimizes the Environmental Impact Associated with Training AI Models
John Snow Labs, the Healthcare AI and NLP company and developer of the Spark NLP library, today announced that it has achieved carbon neutral status, offsetting the company’s carbon footprint for its entire six-year operating history. Working with Natural Capital Partners, John Snow Labs has achieved CarbonNeutral® company certification — the global standard for carbon neutrality, managed for over 20 years to deliver clear, conclusive, and transparent carbon neutral programs.
Carbon neutrality is obtained by calculating a carbon footprint and reducing it to zero through a combination of efficiency measures internally, while supporting external emission reduction projects. The CarbonNeutral Protocol gives businesses a rigorous and transparent framework to deliver carbon neutrality for their business, products, or activities. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the certification can help increase revenue, reduce cost by minimizing activities like business travel, engage stakeholders, and minimize the risk around future regulations addressing carbon consumption.
According to research from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, training several common large AI models can emit more than 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide — equivalent to nearly five times the lifetime emissions of the average American car. Advances in areas such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) specifically have required training even larger models, resulting in a significantly higher energy output. Challenges like this have made it imperative for AI companies to rethink their energy efficiency.
The CarbonNeutral Protocol emphasizes the need for companies to reduce emissions under their direct control as a key element of fighting climate change. To implement this program, John Snow Labs has replaced the majority of compute intensive workloads required to build and operate its products. Carbon neutral status is achieved by offsetting the unavoidable carbon footprint with a portfolio of renewable energy projects, which are vital to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the growing global demand for energy and build sustainable infrastructure.
“John Snow Labs helps the world’s leading healthcare organizations put NLP to work, and using AI for good has always been at the core of that mission,” said David Talby, CTO, John Snow Labs. “Achieving CarbonNeutral status is another step we’ve taken to show our commitment to practicing ethical AI and using technology to not just better business, but humanity.”
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