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Meta has been accused of using faulty data to train an artificial intelligence climate tool, with scientists claiming the Big Tech group raised false hopes about the feasibility of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale.
The tech company said last year that it had helped researchers with the elusive problem of identifying materials to efficiently remove carbon dioxide from air, by publishing a “groundbreaking” data set on which it also trained free-to-use machine learning models.
But none of the 135 materials that Meta’s research said could bind CO₂ “strongly” had that characteristic, while some did not exist, according to researchers from Heriot-Watt University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).
“I wish they had computed a bit less and thought a bit more,” said Berend Smit, a professor of chemical engineering at EPFL, describing some of Meta’s results as “nonsense”. “You get the impression that the Big Tech mentality is do first, think later.”

Meta’s AI climate tool raised false hope of CO₂ removal, scientists say
Big Tech group accused of using inaccurate data in effort to identify materials that can attract carbon dioxide from the air
The Meta logo in the sky behind clouds
Tech companies have argued that investing in lowering the cost of carbon dioxide removal could help them offset their own carbon footprints © Alex Wheeler/FT montage/Getty Images
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Kenza Bryan in London
Published2 hours ago
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Meta has been accused of using faulty data to train an artificial intelligence climate tool, with scientists claiming the Big Tech group raised false hopes about the feasibility of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale.