The acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies and their applications are revolutionizing industries from transportation to healthcare, developing breakthroughs that are changing our daily lives and human-machine interactions. Changes in weather patterns, oceans, sea level rise, and catastrophic risk amplify the need for accelerated AI research and transition to practical use for decision-making to prepare, mitigate, and build resilience before, during, and after disasters. As recent studies have concluded (Sun et al, 2020), applications of artificial intelligence for disaster management have faced challenges, from data quality to data availability to train models, biases, or AI that has performed well in research environments yet fails in at-scale production environments. In addition, access to high performance computing (HPC) and infrastructure able to handle massive volumes and velocities of data can be cost prohibitive especially for local jurisdictions with limited budgets. The advancement of HPC in the cloud, marked reduction on hardware, and open source technologies are breaking down barriers and unleashing an AI revolution that disaster managers must harness to save lives, reduce catastrophic risk, and build resilient communities. In this keynote, our speaker will discuss the risks and rewards of AI for catastrophes and highlight the bright future ahead for our industry.