data center power demand
With over 10,000 data centers worldwide—more than 5,000 of them located in the United States—and new facilities being built every day, the energy demand from data centers is growing rapidly. Much of that demand is driven by the use of artificial intelligence. U.S. data centers consumed more than 4% of the country’s total electricity in 2023, and by 2030 that fraction could raise to 9%. A single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as 50,000 homes. To address this complex challenge, the MIT Energy Initiative brings together MIT faculty members and scientists to work with utility, energy, and equipment companies and hyperscalers worldwide.
The rapid increase in data center power demand has emerged as a key challenge for hyperscale and colocated datacenters, power generators, electrical grid operators, and regulators. MITEI currently conducts substantial research on data center energy challenges, including low- or zero-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, low- and no-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. At events such as its webinars, symposiums, and research conferences, MITEI continues to bring together academic and industry leaders with government policy makers to explore the challenges and opportunities of increased data center power demand.
“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.”
William H. Green
Director, MIT Energy Initiative
Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering
Videos
Research
Publications
-
September 2024
Co-Optimizing Power-Transportation Networks With Circulating Loads and Particle-Like Stochastic Motion
Coupling power-transportation systems may enhance the resilience of power grids by engaging energy-carrying mobile entities such as electric vehicles (EVs), truck-mounted energy storage systems, and Data Centers (DCs), which can… Read more
-
July 2024
Repurposing Coal Power Plants into Thermal Energy Storage for Supporting Zero-carbon Data Centers
Coal power plants will need to be phased out and face stranded asset risks under the net-zero energy system transition. Repurposing coal power plants could recoup profits and reduce carbon… Read more
News
People
MIT faculty and researchers who are working on the challenges of data center power demand.
data center power forum
The MIT Energy Initiative is strongly positioned to address many of the most intractable data center power issues through the Data Center Power Forum, which builds on MITEI’s nearly two decades of delivering energy sector research rooted in MIT’s world-leading expertise in engineering, science, and policy. MITEI’s Data Center Power Forum provides member companies with reliable insights into energy supply, grid operations, load management, the built environment, and electricity market design and regulatory policy for data centers. 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 MITEI’s reputation as a respected provider of impartial scientific and policy advice, a catalyst for technology breakthroughs, and a leader in technoeconomic analyses and lifecycle assessments for energy sectors.
MITEI’s Data Center Power Forum membership provides access to all content from MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), and inclusion in a unique quorum of leading industry stakeholders. As part of the new Data Center Power Forum, MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center will include funding for projects on topics relevant to data center energy in upcoming proposal cycles. MITEI will work with MIT researchers to formulate projects that address challenges of critical interest to Data Center Power Forum members. MITEI’s oversight ensures that these projects provide relevant economic, policy, and technical analyses.
Additional value includes:
• Quarterly webinars with MIT experts and forum-funded researchers on latest technology, policy, and engineering topics related to data center power and energy research;
• Participation in the industry-academic advisory board to guide data center research directions at MITEI;
• An annual hybrid meeting on data center power, with an opportunity to interact with MITEI members who have expertise across many sectors related to energy and energy policy;
• Access to a Data Center Power Forum program manager; and
• Members-only technology summaries that synthesize the results of Center-funded cohort of projects relevant to data center power challenges.
Through MITEI, Data Center Power Forum members may also arrange additional, targeted sponsored research in any MIT unit or may collaborate with other Forum members to jointly sponsor pre-competitive MIT research. The opportunity to meet and hold discussions on key data center challenges with other Forum members across relevant sectors is a key benefit of this MITEI-led activity. MITEI’s rich experience convening leaders from sectors that supply, generate, transport, build, rely on, or manage energy or energy systems make participation in the Data Center Power Forum a valuable way to understand the interests and concerns of other businesses in a low-pressure and collegial setting.
For more information about the Data Center Power Forum, please contact JJ Laukaitis, MITEI’s director of member services.