Towards More Sustainable Computing

Speaker:        Professor Fred CHONG
                Director, Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing
                University of California at Santa Barbara

Title:          "Towards More Sustainable Computing"

Date:           Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Time:           4:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:          Lecture Theatre H (near lifts 27/28), HKUST

Abstract:

Computing devices are the fastest-growing segment of
carbon production into our atmosphere, and their continued proliferation
will have substantial impact on our global environment, energy needs, and
IT-based economy.  A modern server consumes as much energy in a year as an
SUV.  Worldwide, businesses now spend $30 billion annually to power their
data centers, and that cost is growing rapidly. Energy expenditures are
already becoming as significant as the cost of machines, making energy
efficiency a critical factor in the future success of our information
technology infrastructure.  To meet these challenges, our community must
leverage its strengths and embrace new metrics, disciplines, and
technologies.

In this talk, I will explore some of these challenges and opportunities,
including why the cost of manufacturing needs to be evaluated alongside
device usage using life-cycle analysis, why emerging computing, storage,
and cooling technologies could be the key to more energy-proportional
computing, and how the hardware and software of servers need to be more
robust for energy management.


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Biography:

Fred Chong is the Director of Computer Engineering and a Professor of
Computer Science at UCSB.  He also directs the Greenscale effort in
Energy-Efficient Computing, which involves over 20 multi-disciplinary
faculties.  Chong received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1996 and was a faculty
member and Chancellor's fellow at UC Davis from 1997-2005.  He is a
recipient of the NSF CAREER award and his research interests include
emerging technologies for computing, multicore and embedded architectures,
computer security, and sustainable computing.