As the eyes of the world turn to the Middle East for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, the UAE has unveiled an innovative new AI model aimed at driving climate awareness and sustainability.
Dubbed "Jais Climate," this specialized chatbot leverages advanced natural language processing to provide detailed responses to queries on climate change, environmental policies, and potential solutions in both English and Arabic.
Developed through a partnership between Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and Abu Dhabi-based technology firm G42's subsidiary Core42, Jais Climate stands out as the first bilingual large language model dedicated specifically to climate change and sustainability.
"Jais Climate uses AI to make climate change information accessible and accurate, empowering millions of people to enhance their understanding of these complex issues," said Eric Xing, MBZUAI's President, highlighting the chatbot's capability to break down complicated climate topics into digestible conversations.
Unlike most AI assistants only available in English, Jais Climate uniquely supports both Arabic and English, enabling it to serve over 1.4 billion English speakers and 274 million Arabic speakers worldwide. This bilingual capability aligns with the UAE's values of inclusivity while expanding climate literacy across diverse demographics.
Built upon MBZUAI's Vicuna13B model and Core42's top-performing Arabic LLM Jais13B, Jais Climate underwent extensive fine-tuning to excel in climate-related conversations.
Its training encompassed ingesting over 1.4 million labeled instructions from datasets tailored specifically to sustainability topics and UAE environmental policies by a skilled team of linguists and subject matter experts.
As a result, this cutting-edge model can parse complex climate phenomena and emergent research into understandable dialogue to enlighten individuals across education levels and demographics.
Today's launch aligns strategically with COP28 in Dubai, where Jais Climate aims to facilitate constructive climate dialogues. Visitors to MBZUAI's on-site booth can also engage directly with the AI system to gain on-demand insights around pressing climate themes.
"Our ambition is that by enabling accessibility to verified climate data, Jais Climate will not only support research but also foster heightened awareness across communities, furthering more conscious behaviors towards our planet," said Core42's Chief AI Officer, Andrew Jackson.
With the ability to provide users personalized recommendations to reduce carbon footprints, Jais Climate exemplifies how AI can empower individuals to take charge of sustainability. As the urgent climate crisis necessitates global participation, tools like Jais Climate will be pivotal in educating the public and driving impactful environmental action.