Power, water, chips: Penn video asks how data centres can become more efficient
In Penn Engineering's video podcast, computer architect Benjamin Lee discusses the energy and water demand of data centres and how chip design and operations could reduce it.
Photo: PiDatacenters / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Video: YouTube · Penn Engineering · youtube.com
The University of Pennsylvania's engineering school released episode 14 of its video podcast "Innovation & Impact" on 20 October. In it, Dean Vijay Kumar talks with Benjamin Lee, professor of electrical and systems engineering and of computer and information science. Lee researches computer architecture, microprocessors, memory systems and data centres, with a focus on energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.
According to Penn Engineering, the conversation covers the electricity and water needed to run data centres and the hardware behind them. Lee explains how advances in chip design, computing architectures and data centre operations could improve efficiency, and the trade-offs involved in cutting carbon emissions.
Another topic is the relationship between computing infrastructure and energy systems. In Lee's view, many incremental improvements across chips, data centres and electricity generation could together significantly raise efficiency over time. The full episode is available on Penn Engineering's YouTube channel.