Penn State Researchers Tackle Data Center Power Consumption

A team of engineers at Pennsylvania State University has landed a $1 million grant fro the National Science Foundation for research into reducing power consumption at data centers.

The three-year project, "CSR: Medium: Provisioning and Harnessing Energy Storage for Data Center Demand Response," is a collaboration between the school's Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering (MNE) departments.

According to information released by the school, data centers account "for 2 percent of the world’s electricity consumption, and 1.5 percent of the global carbon footprint" and their consumption continues to grow.

"In this new project, with an inter-disciplinary expertise spanning computer systems and energy storage  across the CSE and MNE departments, we are in a unique position to explore novel ways of modulating datacenter power demand using energy storage technologies" said Anand Sivasubramaniam, professor of computer science and engineering and lead researcher, in a prepared statement. "Energy storage is already being deployed in datacenters today for providing temporary power during outages, and this project looks to extend their usage for controlling the power demand from the grid. Such control can be useful to under-provision the power infrastructure and reduce power demands during high tariff periods. It can also smoothen the supply vagaries associated with renewable energy sources, which are becoming increasingly popular for datacenters."

About the Author

Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • person signing a bill at a desk with a faint glow around the document. A tablet and laptop are subtly visible in the background, with soft colors and minimal digital elements

    California Governor Signs AI Content Safeguards into Law

    California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially signed off on a series of landmark artificial intelligence bills, signaling the state’s latest efforts to regulate the burgeoning technology, particularly in response to the misuse of sexually explicit deepfakes. The legislation is aimed at mitigating the risks posed by AI-generated content, as concerns grow over the technology's potential to manipulate images, videos, and voices in ways that could cause significant harm.

  • glowing AI brain composed of geometric lines and nodes, encased within a protective shield of circuit patterns

    NIST's U.S. AI Safety Institute Announces Research Collaboration with Anthropic and OpenAI

    The U.S. AI Safety Institute, part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has formalized agreements with AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI to collaborate on AI safety research, testing, and evaluation.

  • Anthropic Announces Claude 3.5 Sonnet, First of Three 3.5 Releases

    Anthropic has introduced a new member of its Claude LLM family: Claude 3.5 Sonnet, the first release in the forthcoming Claude 3.5 product line.

  • Orchestrating AI Change with an AI Maestro

    As AI is integrated across institutional systems, leading organizations will need an individual who can master the art of applying the technology to accelerate performance while maintaining harmony in the enterprise.