Perspective

Ubiquitous IT has changed the lives of billions of people. In 2005, servers (including their cooling and auxiliary equipment) used 1.2 percent of U.S. and 0.8 percent of global electricity; all IT, telecoms, and office equipment used 3 percent of U.S. electricity. However, IT’s growth is increasingly offset by power-sipping hardware, server-sharing software, terse code, and efficient power supplies and cooling systems.

For example, the new Wynyard data center that my team co-designed with EDS (now part of HP) got 16-fold more computing per kWh than conventional designs, and cost one-tenth less to build. Full exploitation of the identified opportunities would have boosted energy productivity by about 80-fold at half normal capital cost.

Moreover, IT probably saves far more energy indirectly than it uses directly. Computers optimize car engines. Electronic controls improve buildings and factories. Computer analysis fine-tunes nearly everything that makes or uses energy. The Internet itself probably saves energy: videoconferences displace flying, a Google search releasing 0.2 grams of carbon displaces thousands-fold more carbon released by driving to the library, and e-commerce reduces retail and warehouse space and shipping.

IT is also enabling a dramatic shift of power generation from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewables. In 2008, the world invested more in renewable than in fossil-fueled electricity generation; renewables (except big hydro) plus cogeneration produced two-thirds of the world’s new electricity. IT is both using energy with elegant frugality and enabling huge energy savings and climate-safe sources. Together, IT and energy are creating abundance by design. Their convergence marks one of the century’s greatest business opportunities.