Computing
GRAND CHALLENGE:
A New Moore’s Law for computing energy efficiency
The very high growth rate in internet traffic cannot be maintained without a significant reduction in the electricity use in data centers and the electronic equipment that operates the internet. Achieving this goal will enable continued growth of the internet and applications requiring faster computing speed and networking. UCSB researchers are developing an array of technological solutions to enable faster computing and electronics, including optoelectronics, cooling technologies, wireless networking, and life-cycle analysis. In addition, this Group couples closely with the Buildings & Design Group of the Institute in its focus on data centers.
Projects
The Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing serves as a focal point for a vertically-integrated effort to drive key energy-efficient technologies in computing and electronics, and couples horizontally to the Buildings & Design group through its work on data centers. Collectively, these technologies address very significant near-term and long-term energy challenges.
As computing and data storage increasingly become globally-available public utilities, the proliferation of large numbers of servers and massive data centers will have a substantial energy footprint in our future. The typical server consumes as much energy in one year as an SUV. Worldwide, businesses now spend $30 billion to power their data centers, and that cost is growing rapidly. Energy expenditures have now become more significant than the cost of the equipment, making energy efficiency of critical importance to our future information technology infrastructure and natural environment.
Energy-efficient computing cannot be achieved without the interplay between computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and environmental science. Designing tomorrow’s large-scale computing systems will require a vertically-integrated effort to drive key energy-efficient technologies in computing, electronics, and buildings. Collectively, these technologies address very significant near-term and long-term energy challenges and their impact will require evaluation in economic and environmental terms.
· Emerging Technologies for Energy-Proportional Computation
· Life-Cycle Analysis and Policy
Affiliations
The Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing
Faculty
See listing of faculty in the Computing Solutions Group.
