2026-07-09 –, Linden Theater
Take a dive into ClimateGPT, the first foundational AI model engineered to synthesize climate change information to produce insights not "answers." Daniel Erasmus, head of the ClimateGPT Foundation, takes you inside this European nonprofit initiative, showing us how his publicly available, open source LLMs are revealing the social impacts, disparate connections, and deeper impacts of climate change. Trained on billions of webpages, articles and data sets, ClimateGPT is built to synthesize interdisciplinary research --to make the connections key to finding a path forward.
At the Decentralized Web Summit in 2018, global strategist Daniel Erasmus presented "Climate Change, Migration, War, Collapse: How Might a Decentralized Web Help?" He painted a dark picture, showing how climate change is leading to collapse and dislocation. Eight years later he is back, asking a different question: "How can we use the power of AI to chart a different path for the planet?"
Today, Erasmus is leading ClimateGPT, the first open-source family of foundational LLMs dedicated to making the crucial socio-economic connections originating from climate events.
Trained and hosted entirely on renewable energy, ClimateGPT is specifically engineered to understand how a physical event (like a drought) triggers socioeconomic impacts (like food shortages and supply chain disruptions). Partnering with Internet Archive Europe, ClimateGPT is an example of "Public Good AI." The goal is to prove that combining planetary-scale datasets with decentralized, open technology can empower governments and citizens without relying on "black box" proprietary algorithms.
Come explore this example of Public Good AI: one of the first European, open source, non-profit, sustainably powered LLMs, built at planetary scale.
Daniel Erasmus, head of Erasmus.AI and the ClimateGPT Foundation, has two decades of experience in collecting and processing planetary scale datasets. He leads the team developing ClimateGTP's foundational and fine-tuned model family, which is the world’s first foundational AI model family focussed on effects of Climate Change on Human Systems
Daniel is also Head of AI for Internet Archive Europe, releasing several public purpose models via Hugging Face. He is a member of the OECD AI Expert Group, and a Full Member of the global think tank, the Club of Rome.
For 25 years, Erasmus worked with governments and Fortune 50 companies by leading global foresight research as co-founder of The Digital Thinking Network. The DTN led scenario and innovation breakthrough processes anticipating the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Oil Price Collapse, and it created the first Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
Additionally as a response to Covid, Daniel was instrumental in creating an initiative that has sponsored 100 million meals in Southern Africa.
Born in South Africa, Daniel lives in Amsterdam with his wife Elisabeth, three daughters and a son. He can be found in his office in Amsterdam or on planes, trains and cafes with a laptop, a bowl of matcha, and a yearning for the warm plains of Africa.