Green Computing

 

What Is Green Computing?

Green computing, or sustainable computing, is the practice of maximizing energy efficiency and minimizing environmental impact in the ways computer chips, systems and software are designed and used.

Also called green information technology, green IT or sustainable IT, green computing spans concerns across the supply chain, from the raw materials used to make computers to how systems get recycled.

In their working lives, green computers must deliver the most work for the least energy, typically measured by performance per watt.

Why Is Green Computing Important?

Green computing is a significant tool to combat climate change, the existential threat of our time.

Global temperatures have risen about 1.2°C over the last century. As a result, ice caps are melting, causing sea levels to rise about 20 centimeters and increasing the number and severity of extreme weather events.

The rising use of electricity is one of the causes of global warming. Data centers represent a small fraction of total electricity use, about 1% or 200 terawatt-hours per year, but they’re a growing factor that demands attention.

Powerful, energy-efficient computers are part of the solution. They’re advancing science and our quality of life, including the ways we understand and respond to climate change.

What Are the Elements of Green Computing?

Engineers know green computing is a holistic discipline.

“Energy efficiency is a full-stack issue, from the software down to the chips,” said Sachin Idgunji, co-chair of the power working group for the industry’s MLPerf AI benchmark and a distinguished engineer working on performance analysis at NVIDIA.

For example, in one analysis he found NVIDIA DGX A100 systems delivered a nearly 5x improvement in energy efficiency in scale-out AI training benchmarks compared to the prior generation.

“My primary role is analyzing and improving energy efficiency of AI applications at everything from the GPU and the system node to the full data center scale,” he said.

Idgunji’s work is a job description for a growing cadre of engineers building products from smartphones to supercomputers.