With urban heat islands intensifying due to climate change and rising energy demands for cooling, researchers used AI to engineer a white paint that reflects up to 99% of sunlight and efficiently emits infrared heat, which can thus passively cooling buildings and surfaces. Improving on previous ultra white paints without AI engineering, this AI-designed coating provides an alternative for reducing air conditioning reliance and urban temperatures. Discussed in a Guardian article and a TechXplore posting , the breakthrough comes from an international team led by Yuebing Zheng at the University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering . The use of AI to design special materials with niche properties holds much promise, but this result has broad practical applications if it can be scaled for mass production.