The AI4Cities project gives the city of Stavanger an exciting opportunity to influence the direction of green technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the promise of helping local governments reaching the ambitious, but necessary climate goals of this century. AI is thus a tool to reach for a sustainable future. By looking for solutions within the areas of mobility and energy, the six European cities are focusing on the two most challenging areas, as these account for roughly half of all GHG emissions in Europe. This gives the suppliers the opportunity to solve the two biggest tasks of current city development.

Large interest
Ai4Cities received a large number of bids for the development of new solutions, responding to a challenge that was truly open. The cities indicated challenge areas where we believed solutions based on AI could make a real influence. The developers embraced the challenge and defined 98 different proposals to meet the climate crises. The cities identified the 41 solutions of biggest potential, and these are currently being developed by the suppliers.

Different solutions
Could we as cities make use of new predictive and optimising tools for city and mobility planning? Could we introduce tools to optimise the movement of goods through our cities? Could we motivate the citizens towards more sustainable patterns of movement, get rid of unnecessary driving in search for a parking spot, or could we make journeys based on public and active mobility more seamless and efficient? Could we ease the introduction of new energy sources to municipal buildings or the local economy? Could we motivate the citizens to make better use of renewable power supply? Could we use buildings as means of energy storage for later use? Could we use new solutions to ease the introduction of circular and less CO2 intensive construction work, or could we make our buildings much more energy efficient?

Pushing for change
We look with excitement towards the next phases of the project, hoping to see the development of several great solutions, hoping to test the most potent of these in the cities, and by doing so we are aiming to learn. Learn about the potential or these type or solutions, and ways to make use of developments like these in our fight against CO2 emissions. We need change, not only minor adjustments, but radical change. AI4Cities could provide us with a boost. Through learning about the solutions and their potential, while pushing suppliers to engage with an emerging green market, we are hoping to significantly affect the dynamics of the city, reducing CO2 emissions and improving city life.