Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study

While the massive adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is threatening the environment, new research efforts begin to be employed to measure and mitigate the carbon footprint of both training and inference phases. In this domain, two carbon-aware training strategies have been proposed in the lite...

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Main Authors: Roberto Vergallo, Luca Mainetti
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-09-01
Series:Future Internet
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/16/9/334
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author Roberto Vergallo
Luca Mainetti
author_facet Roberto Vergallo
Luca Mainetti
author_sort Roberto Vergallo
collection DOAJ
description While the massive adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is threatening the environment, new research efforts begin to be employed to measure and mitigate the carbon footprint of both training and inference phases. In this domain, two carbon-aware training strategies have been proposed in the literature: Flexible Start and Pause & Resume. Such strategies—natively Cloud-based—use the time resource to postpone or pause the training algorithm when the carbon intensity reaches a threshold. While such strategies have proved to achieve interesting results on a benchmark of modern models covering Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computer vision applications and a wide range of model sizes (up to 6.1B parameters), it is still unclear whether such results may hold also with different algorithms and in different geographical regions. In this confirmation study, we use the same methodology as the state-of-the-art strategies to recompute the saving in carbon emissions of Flexible Start and Pause & Resume in the Anomaly Detection (AD) domain. Results confirm their effectiveness in two specific conditions, but the percentage reduction behaves differently compared with what is stated in the existing literature.
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spelling doaj-art-29084accd66346ccb3eb6511ecbee8052025-08-20T01:55:27ZengMDPI AGFuture Internet1999-59032024-09-0116933410.3390/fi16090334Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation StudyRoberto Vergallo0Luca Mainetti1Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, ItalyWhile the massive adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is threatening the environment, new research efforts begin to be employed to measure and mitigate the carbon footprint of both training and inference phases. In this domain, two carbon-aware training strategies have been proposed in the literature: Flexible Start and Pause & Resume. Such strategies—natively Cloud-based—use the time resource to postpone or pause the training algorithm when the carbon intensity reaches a threshold. While such strategies have proved to achieve interesting results on a benchmark of modern models covering Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computer vision applications and a wide range of model sizes (up to 6.1B parameters), it is still unclear whether such results may hold also with different algorithms and in different geographical regions. In this confirmation study, we use the same methodology as the state-of-the-art strategies to recompute the saving in carbon emissions of Flexible Start and Pause & Resume in the Anomaly Detection (AD) domain. Results confirm their effectiveness in two specific conditions, but the percentage reduction behaves differently compared with what is stated in the existing literature.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/16/9/334green AIgreen softwarecloudsustainabilitycarbon awareness
spellingShingle Roberto Vergallo
Luca Mainetti
Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study
Future Internet
green AI
green software
cloud
sustainability
carbon awareness
title Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study
title_full Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study
title_fullStr Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study
title_full_unstemmed Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study
title_short Measuring the Effectiveness of Carbon-Aware AI Training Strategies in Cloud Instances: A Confirmation Study
title_sort measuring the effectiveness of carbon aware ai training strategies in cloud instances a confirmation study
topic green AI
green software
cloud
sustainability
carbon awareness
url https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/16/9/334
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