Swiss researchers have developed an artificial intelligence system that could revolutionize one of the world's most carbon-intensive industries by creating climate-friendly cement recipes in seconds.
The cement industry currently produces around 8% of the world's CO₂ emissions—more than three times the carbon footprint of the entire aviation sector. The AI system developed by researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland dramatically cuts cement's carbon footprint by redesigning its recipe, simulating thousands of ingredient combinations to identify formulations that maintain strength while emitting far less CO₂.
"One promising strategy for reducing emissions is to modify the cement recipe itself—replacing some of the clinker with alternative cementitious materials," explains mathematician Romana Boiger, first author of the study. "Instead of testing thousands of variations in the lab, we can use our model to generate practical recipe suggestions within seconds—it's like having a digital cookbook for climate-friendly cement."
The AI model calculates total CO₂ emissions for different cement material recipes in milliseconds—approximately a thousand times faster than traditional modeling. "You could say we're doing geology in fast motion," says John Provis, head of the Cement Systems Research Group at PSI and co-author of the study.
The potential impact is substantial. "To put it bluntly, humanity today consumes more cement than food—around one and a half kilograms per person per day," notes Provis. "If we could improve the emissions profile by just a few percent, this would correspond to a carbon dioxide reduction equivalent to thousands or even tens of thousands of cars."
The interdisciplinary project brought together cement chemists, thermodynamics experts, and AI specialists as part of the Swiss Centre of Excellence on Net Zero Emissions (SCENE), an interdisciplinary research program aimed at developing scientifically sound solutions for drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in industry and energy supply.
While the study is currently a proof-of-concept, the researchers hope their work will accelerate the path to net-zero emissions in cement production. Laboratory testing remains essential, but AI offers an unprecedented accelerator for developing sustainable, high-quality cement that could transform this critical but carbon-intensive industry.