David Rolnick is Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at McGill University and at Mila Quebec AI Institute, where his work focuses on applications of machine learning to help address climate change. He is Co-founder and Chair of Climate Change AI, Scientific Co-director of Sustainability in the Digital Age, and co-lead of the NSF-NSERC Global Center on AI and Biodiversity. Dr. Rolnick received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT. He is a former NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and Fulbright Scholar, and was named to the MIT Technology Review’s 2021 list of “35 Innovators Under 35.”

AI2050 Project Overview

As climate change leads to extreme and atypical weather patterns worldwide, it is essential for governments, companies, and individuals to have high-quality data to respond. However, physics-based climate and weather forecasts often have low spatial resolution as well as inaccuracies. These issues are even greater in the Global South due to the lower availability of high-quality sensor data used as input. David’s AI2050 project will develop innovative AI-based superresolution tools that can predict accurate, high-resolution climate and weather data from low-resolution input, to meet global data needs and alleviate geographical inequities.