Energy consumption – the view in 2050

Jimmy Chang, VP of ATEN’s Green Energy Business Unit, and responsible for new data centre product development plans, has described how he thinkss data centres will change between now and 2050. He is part of ATEN’s team working towards achieving a new level of energy intelligence in large-scale computing.

  • Thursday, 9th October 2014 Posted 10 years ago in by Phil Alsop

He said: “The data centres of the future will set new benchmarks in artificial intelligence. Software, operated through just one user interface, will control the physical environment within buildings that house the date centres – as well as the plug-in-and-play hardware and virtual IT infrastructure within them.


“This new generation of software will balance everything, including energy supply and demand. It’ll merge the functionality of today’s IT infrastructure software with advanced levels of intelligent automation throughout every inch of each data centre.


“Dataflow between the energy and IT infrastructure will be two-way. The energy flowing between our National Grid and what is likely to be a self-powered grid will be bidirectional too, and both grids will have facilities to build up surplus energy stores. Nothing will be wasted.


“Facilities and data centre technology management will become one role and unite in a single software user interface. This software-defined interface will link users with each individual physical device.


“Just as information mobility became reality with the advent of smartphones, tablets, laptops and now entertainment systems, energy mobility will become ‘the norm’, powering everything from electronic vehicles and household appliances through to data centres and manufacturing tooling.”


ATEN has been releasing new products and working towards achieving a whole new level of energy intelligence. The new key characteristics of data centre energy efficiency are:
A) Optimised automation
B) New levels of interoperability between virtualised systems
C) Energy autonomy (self-generated power over and above immediate needs, which is then self-distributed for immediate consumption and storage)
D) Future data exchange among heterogeneous systems in the cloud.


ATEN’s Green Energy Business Unit develops technology products for the data centres of the future, which are based on artificial intelligence for energy and information technologies.


Jimmy concluded: “Global energy consumption is set to treble by 2050, which will further impact the energy shortfalls already being experienced in some of the developed world’s technology hotspots, which include London and Milton Keynes. Coupling this with various environmental threats, including CO2 pollution, makes alarming reading, and so it is essential to develop and adopt technology to revolutionise energy efficiency curves.”