Many data centers use the same amount of electricity needed to power a small city, says U-M Professor Thomas Wenisch.
With more than half a million data centers in the world, that’s a lot of energy being used to store information.
Wenisch and engineers at the University of Michigan are exploring creative solutions for data center energy efficiency. Ideas such as “PowerNap” would allow computers to sleep during brief instants between tasks, without any depreciation in service quality.
ABOUT THE PROFESSOR: Thomas Wenisch is the Morris Wellman Faculty Development Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. His research interests center on computer architecture with particular emphasis on multiprocessor and multicore systems, multicore programmability, smartphone architecture, data center architecture and performance evaluation methodology.
