Project to cut AI data centre energy use with 2D semiconductors

The team at QMUL will be joined by scientists at the Universities of Nottingham and Glasgow in the £6m NEED2D (Enabling Net Zero and the AI Revolution with Ultra-Low Energy 2D Materials and Devices) project.

The team will work in partnership with manufacturers and research institutions to develop new materials and prototype transformational low-energy-consumption electronic devices such as transistors.

In a statement, Sir Colin Humphreys, Professor of Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London, said: “Governments around the world are spending billions building wind, solar, nuclear and gas power stations to meet the huge energy demands of AI data centres. Our approach is to tackle the problem at the source: by reducing the power these centres consume in the first place.

“To do this we will use the latest new materials… which are atomically thin. This will save over 90 per cent of the energy required by data centres and computers, reduce the cost of electricity, and help to enable Net Zero.”

The National Grid predicts that the electricity demand from UK data centres will increase six fold by 2034, to 30 per cent of total electricity used. 

Sir Colin said: “Leading semiconductor industries including TSMC, Intel and Samsung have already recognised 2D materials as the future, placing them on their technology roadmaps for 2040. Our vision is to make the UK the world leader in ultra-low energy 2D devices well before 2040.”

Beyond AI data centres, the 2D materials could be used to reduce the energy costs of other devices, including smartphones.

The new 2D materials being developed, including graphene and related compounds, carry electrical charge with far greater efficiency than silicon when scaled down to two dimensions. Electrons in these new materials can move much faster than in silicon, enabling ultra-low power computing and reducing heat waste. They are also suited for miniaturisation, 3D stacking and new computing architectures including quantum and neuromorphic systems.

Amalia Patanè, Professor of Physics at Nottingham University and deputy project lead, said: “2D semiconductors behave in a fundamentally different way from their bulk [3D] counterparts and their unique electronic properties can support entirely new effects at the atomic scale. We will advance the precise engineering of 2D semiconductors, pushing the limits of what we can create, probe and exploit.”