As artificial intelligence systems continue to expand into everyday applications, concerns regarding their computational demands and environmental impact are becoming increasingly important. Modern AI models often require significant processing power and energy consumption, raising questions about scalability and long-term sustainability.
HCI-TERRA addresses these challenges by studying how sustainability considerations can be integrated directly into the design, interaction, and deployment of intelligent systems. The initiative explores how users interact with AI technologies and how these interactions can be optimized to reduce unnecessary computational overhead.
More information about the initiative and its ongoing research activities can be found on the official HCI-TERRA website. Among the researchers contributing to this area are Eya Ben Chaaben and Janin Koch, authors of “Sustainable Model Selection Is a Design Problem: Supporting Exploration and Comparison in ML Practice”, and Raghavendra Selvan (University of Copenhagen), the author of the book “Sustainable AI” (2025).
Improving Transparency and Energy Awareness
One of the key ideas behind HCI-TERRA is that users and developers should have better visibility into the computational cost of AI systems. Many modern intelligent applications operate without exposing how much energy or processing power is required behind the scenes.
The initiative explores approaches that make AI systems more transparent and interpretable, helping users better understand the trade-offs between performance, responsiveness, and resource consumption. This perspective aligns with broader efforts in sustainable AI research, including projects such as SustainML, which promote the development of intelligent systems that balance performance with energy efficiency and responsible resource usage.
Beyond Hardware Efficiency
HCI-TERRA also highlights that sustainable AI extends beyond hardware optimization alone. Software design, interaction patterns, model architecture, and even user behavior can significantly influence the overall environmental footprint of intelligent systems.
By studying these dimensions together, the initiative promotes a broader and more holistic vision of sustainable computing. This aligns with current efforts across the AI community to develop technologies that balance innovation with responsible resource usage.
Supporting the Future of Sustainable AI
Research initiatives such as HCI-TERRA reflect a growing movement toward designing AI systems that are both technically advanced and environmentally conscious. The ideas explored within the project contribute to ongoing discussions around efficient machine learning, responsible AI deployment, and sustainable computing infrastructures.
As sustainable AI continues to gain importance across research and industry, projects like HCI-TERRA help demonstrate how interdisciplinary collaboration can support the development of more efficient and human-centered intelligent systems.
Looking Ahead
The future of AI will increasingly depend not only on achieving higher performance, but also on ensuring that intelligent systems remain sustainable and practical at scale. By combining expertise in Human-Computer Interaction, AI, and sustainable computing, HCI-TERRA represents an important step toward creating technologies that are both impactful and environmentally responsible.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101070408.