Current initiatives
With the number of operating data centers now exceeding 11,000 globally and major growth projected, managing the sector’s demand for power is critical to ensuring universal access to reliable, affordable electricity.
Join MITEI members working to address this issue
Data center power forumThe rapid increase in data center power demand has emerged as a key challenge for hyperscalers and colocators, power generators, electrical grid operators, regulators and nearby communities—with artificial intelligence driving much of that demand. Data centers currently use about 4.4% of the electricity consumed annually in the United States. The rapid proliferation of data centers is expected to increase this usage to 6.7-12% within the next few years. A single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as 50,000 homes.
The demand for data center power is driving a rapid evolution of business models in many sectors: energy, electrical power systems and storage, data center infrastructure, grid management, and risk reduction. Leaders in these sectors need reliable insights into energy supply, grid load operations and management, the built environment, and electricity market design and regulatory policy for data centers.
At the MIT Energy Initiative, we are strongly positioned to address many of the most intractable data center power issues through our Data Center Power Forum, which builds on our nearly two decades of delivering energy sector research rooted in MIT’s world-leading expertise in engineering, science, and policy. We currently support substantial research on data center energy challenges, including zero- or low-carbon solutions for energy supply and infrastructure, electrical grid management, and electricity market policy. MIT researchers are designing more energy-efficient power electronics and processors, and investigating behind-the-meter, no- and low-carbon power plants, and energy storage. MIT experts are also using artificial intelligence to optimize electrical distribution and the siting of data centers and conducting techno-economic analyses of data center power schemes.
The Data Center Power Forum complements deep MIT expertise in adjacent topics such as low-power processors, efficient algorithms, task-specific artificial intelligence, photonic devices, computing, and the societal consequences of data center expansion. The Forum leverages our reputation as a respected provider of impartial scientific and policy advice, a catalyst for technology breakthroughs, and a leader in techno-economic analyses and lifecycle assessments for energy sectors.
One of the biggest challenges today is to find the energy to power all the new data centers that are being constructed in the United States and around the world. At MIT we’re developing a clear understanding of the problem and finding the solutions that will work for everyone.
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