Science and spirituality for environmental warrior

A quote by prominent Indian spirituality guru Sadhguru has guided Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence’s (MBZUAI) Class of 2023 valedictorian Klea Ziu throughout her master’s in machine learning journey. She credits her achievements during the past two years to her meditation practice and finding balance in her surroundings and demanding schedule.The 27-year-old is the first Albanian graduate from the Abu Dhabi institution – which is just three years old – and was among 59 graduates from 25 countries who received their master’s degrees in computer vision (20), machine learning (32), and natural language processing (7) at the commencement ceremony held at the Abu Dhabi Energy Center on June 4.

Talk about two world’s colliding – science and spirituality. Sadhguru’s famed saying is, “It takes all kinds of people to make the world beautiful. You can do it too”. “It gives me the power and motivation to continue to do what I am doing and give my contribution to make the world a better place to live in,” a spiritual Ziu explains.

“Yoga connects you with the universe,” a spiritual Ziu explains. “It brings balance to you inside, so you have more awareness about what is going on externally such as global warming and other climate impacts. As a society we know AI is good and bad, but it depends on what your purpose is. Meditation and yoga, for me, expresses the good side and it becomes your mindset.”

From responding to a social media advertisement to enroll at the newly launched MBZUAI, the yogi scientist is now ready to make a significant contribution to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and chemistry.

My research focuses on how to reduce carbon dioxide production during methane conversion within the oil and gas industry.

The socially responsible Albanian says sustainability is very close to her heart and is proud to be representing Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence’s (MBZUAI) as part of the Climate Ambassador Program (CAP) in the lead up to COP28 this November and December. She hopes her research – although in its infancy – will assist nations to hit net zero by 2050.

“My thinking is that AI will help us a lot and it will gift us more time for ourselves,” she said. “Now, people work nine to five or even longer, and they don’t have any time to connect with themselves or their families. AI will replace the mundane things we have to do as humans. It will enable us to work less hours in the day.”

Ziu’s thinking is at odds with many who believe technology has taken away society’s connectedness with the rapid rise of personal devices on-the-go. However, it seems to have advanced enough with AI that it may now have the power to reconnect humanity for good. Enter the gift of time and the reality of the metaverse, and you can connect with people in different countries in a reality so real it has a sense of sight (through virtual reality) and touch (through haptics).

But this is not the greatest gift AI and technology has to give. It has a significant role to play in reducing carbon emissions across industries, and creating cleaner, greener energy for all. For her thesis, Ziu chose a new area of research in collaboration with her supervisor, MBZUAI Associate Professor of Machine Learning Martin Takáč.

Currently, the oil and gas sector across the Middle East uses cracking as a common catalyst. Thermal methane cracking uses very high temperatures to breakdown carbon and produce ethylene, which emits high CO₂ amounts into the atmosphere. As part of a voluntary internship to gain industrial experience, Ziu worked at ADNOC headquarters in 2022 with the Panorama team to apply machine learning in the oil and gas sector.

Data from controlled experiments conducted in a purpose-built reactor in Japan assisted Ziu in training her AI model. However, the captured experimental data in Toshiaki Taniike et al’s research article titled “High-Throughput Experimentation and Catalyst Informatics for Oxidative Coupling of Methane” was limited, and assumptions had to be made. Her AI model predicts CO₂ and ethylene outputs. Ziu hopes her research represents a first step in creating a data-driven instantaneous reactor in the UAE.

“My research focuses on how to reduce carbon dioxide production during methane conversion within the oil and gas industry,” Ziu said. “Methane, a chemical compound found on natural gas, can be converted to ethylene through chemical reactions and catalysts – the most important organic compound in the global chemical industry – ethylene is used in the manufacturing of sustainable plastics, fibers and other chemicals.

“Using oxidative coupling of methane procedure instead of cracking for methane conversion will reduce the carbon dioxide production by half. Through the help of AI models, we hope to find the right catalyst that increases the production of ethylene while lowering CO₂. This would be a crucial breakthrough in the oil and gas industry and achieving climate goals.”

OCM has significant importance in the chemical industry as it offers a potentially cleaner
and more economical way to produce valuable chemicals from natural gas. Methane is an
abundant and inexpensive feedstock, and OCM offers a way to convert it into higher value
products without the need for expensive and energy-intensive processes. Overall, OCM
has a significant potential to promote sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions,
conserving resources, promoting circular economy, and improving energy efficiency.

Ziu gave a spotlight talk on her paper “Cubic Regularized Quasi-Newton Methods” at the leading machine learning conference, NeurIPS 2022 in New Orleans, USA last December. It is rare for students to be invited and Ziu was honored to be presenting alongside names such as American mathematician Donald Goldfarb, known internationally for the development of practical algorithms for solving optimization problems.

Among her other achievements, Ziu placed first in the HackforSpace hackathon held in Dubai in 2021 with fellow MBZUAI Class of 2023 graduates. She is an ambassador for the Save Soil global movement by Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru to address land degradation and advocate for healthy soil. She holds a bachelor of information and communication technology from University of Tirana, Albania.