Of China’s major cities, Beijing’s pollution problem is probably the worst, causing thousands of premature deaths every year.

IBM thinks it can change that outlook. The company has unveiled a 10-year initiative to improve China’s national energy systems and protect the health of its citizens. Called “Green Horizon,” the project will focus on air quality management, renewable energy management and energy optimization among Chinese industries. As part of the initiative, IBM has already signed a partnership with the Beijing government, which is hoping to tap into the company’s expertise to help tackle the city’s air pollution crisis. IBM’s plan of attack involves some of the buzziest things in tech, including harnessing the processing power of “big data” as well as the “internet of things,” weather modeling, and supercomputing.

The Beijing government already collects air-quality data. Based on this information, it institutes emergency measures when PM2.5 concentrations rise too high, including closing factories, limiting the number of cars on the road and shutting down schools.

The lack of a finer grain of data means the city’s pollution management is highly disruptive for both individuals and businesses, says Wang Tao, a climate and energy scholar at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy.

IBM plans to improve the quality of data by INSTALLINGhttp://cdncache1-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png 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.

Source: qz.com