Back in 2017, Bill Gates penned a poignant online essay to all graduating college students around the world whereby he tapped artificial intelligence (AI), clean energy, and biosciences as the three fields he would spend his energies on if he could start all over again and wanted to make a big impact in the world today. It turns out that the Microsoft co-founder was right on the money. Three years down the line and deep in the throes of the worst pandemic in modern history, AI and renewable energy have emerged as some of the biggest megatrends of our time. On the one hand, AI is powering the fourth industrial revolution and is increasingly being viewed as a key strategy for mastering some of the greatest challenges of our time, including climate change and pollution. On the other hand, there is a widespread recognition that carbon-free technologies like renewable […]