IBM teams up with the Beijing government to tackle its pollution problem
From a Quartz article by Gwynn Guilford:
IBM plans to improve the quality of data by installing its latest generation of optical sensors, incorporating meteorological satellite data and running that through its artificial-intelligence computing system (a.k.a. Watson, that computer that trounced humans on Jeopardy). The visual maps it generates will identify the source and dispersal pattern of pollutants across Beijing with a street-level degree of detail 72 hours in advance.
The Green Horizon initiative will also see IBM use big data analytics and weather modeling to forecast availability of renewable energies like wind and solar, power sources that are notoriously intermittent. That should limit the amount of that energy being wasted. The third layer of the plan involves a system that IBM is developing to help industrial companies manage their energy consumption.