Dr Yangchen Pan, Departmental Lecturer in Machine Learning, recipient of EPSRC new investigator award

Dr. Yangchen Pan is a departmental lecturer in machine learning at the Department of Engineering Science, whose research centres around sample and computation efficient generalization.

The New Investigator Award (NIA) scheme aims to support researchers in their transition to an independent research career, helping them to establish a research group and develop their own research vision. Dr Pan’s research will be funded for 2.5 years.

The project led by Dr Pan, Sustainable LLMs by Reinforcement Learning with an Intrinsic MDP formulation, aims to transform how large artificial intelligence models are trained and maintained in a rapidly changing data environment. While Large Language Models (LLMs) are driving advances in areas such as healthcare, climate science, and education, their high computational and energy demands create significant financial and environmental challenges. Tackling these challenges is essential to ensure that AI remains accessible, sustainable, and widely beneficial.

Supported by a postdoctoral researcher and two research associates, the project will focus on enabling AI models to optimise their own efficiency over time, reducing energy use, costs, and environmental impact while maintaining strong performance. By adopting a long-term, self-regulating approach to learning, the research aims to balance technological progress with sustainability.

Dr Pan says, “If successful, this work will establish a new direction for sustainable artificial intelligence, lowering barriers to advanced AI adoption and broadening access to powerful AI technologies for smaller organisations and public services, with wide-ranging benefits for society.”