Coding for a greener internet

Waterloo researchers’ find way to reduce data centre energy use by up to 30 per cent

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Media Relations

Researchers from the University of Waterloo have found a way to reduce the energy use of some data centres by as much as 30 per cent.

Computing accounts for as much as 5 per cent of the world’s total energy use every day, and that type of energy consumption is expected to significantly increase as computing power is needed to meet the exponential growth of artificial intelligence. Nearly all web traffic is routed through data centres, the majority of which use the open-source operating system Linux.

“Information arrives at data centres in ‘packets,’ and then the data centre’s frontend, kind of like a receptionist at a front desk, figures out where to send those packets,” said Martin Karsten, professor of Computer Science in the Waterloo’s Math Faculty.

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