Sustainable AI in medicine: navigating innovation, challenges, and environmental impact

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the healthcare sector, offering unprecedented opportunities to enhance clinical efficiency, decision-making, and patient outcomes. However, alongside these benefits, AI brings considerable environmental costs due to its high computational demands. The study by Pariso et al. on AI-driven energy management in Italian hospitals illustrates the dual nature of this transformation, highlighting both the potential for increased efficiency and the structural challenges involved. In this context, the paradigm of Green AI has emerged, advocating for environmentally sustainable approaches to AI development and implementation in healthcare.