The data centres that currently house the vast bulk of the world’s digital information account for around 1.5 per cent of the world’s annual electricity usage. In the next three years, the total amount of data in the world – sometimes referred to as the global datasphere - is predicted to increase by 300 per cent. Maintaining the existing data centre model is not compatible with a sustainable future as the datasphere continues to expand rapidly.
The new project will tackle the problem by developing chemistry-based technology that can create regular patterns and channels at a truly tiny scale. According to the researchers, the new surfaces will be around 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, with channels less than five nanometres in width.
Dr Matt Derry, lecturer in chemistry within Aston University’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, is leading the project in collaboration with Specialist Computer Centres (SCC), the science facility Diamond Light Source and Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania.
“Simply building new data centres without improving data storage technologies is not a viable solution,” said Dr Derry. “Increasingly we face the risk of a so-called data storage crunch and improved data storage solutions are imperative to keep up with the demands of the modern world.”
Dr Derry will be working with Dr Amit Kumar Sarkar, a researcher in materials chemistry, who is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
“I’m delighted to be joining Aston University to develop more efficient data storage technologies,” said Dr Sarkar. “We will be exploiting advanced polymer chemistry as a pathway to increase the amount of data that can be housed on storage media.
“Increasing the efficiency of existing technologies will significantly reduce the need for costly, environmentally damaging construction of new ‘mega data centres’. The next three years will be crucial. The global datasphere is predicted to increase to 175 zettabytes, with one zettabyte being approximately equal to one billion terabytes.”
The project also has the potential to impact other technologies where performance relies on creating regular patterns on the nanometre scale, such as organic electronics for solar energy.
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