The big guns are out in a push to reduce the carbon footprint of the Internet and other networks with the launch of Green Touch, a global consortium that aims to make the world’s communications infrastructure 1,000 times more energy efficient than it is today.
Such a reduction is roughly equivalent to being able to power the world’s communications networks – including the Internet – for three years, using the same amount of energy that it takes to run them for a single day currently.
Green Touch boasts a fabulous array of the top dogs from industry, academia and government labs who say they are banding together deliver new approaches to energy efficiency that will be at the heart of sustainable networks in the decades to come. The consortium also issued an open invitation to all members of the information and communication technology community to join forces in reaching the target.
The move is backed by luminaries including the US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu who said it would, “Bring together scientists and technologists from around the world, and from many different disciplines, in an environment of open innovation to attack the problem from many different directions.”
Green Touch also boasts messages of support from senior ministers in France, South Korea, Portugal and the UK.
The target of increasing energy efficiency by 1000-fold is not drawn from the air, but rather is based on research from Bell Labs into the fundamental properties of ICT networks and technologies, and the physical limits of their operating capacities.
Although the industry has shrouded itself in green, saying it helps people to communicate without needing to travel to be face-to-face, the boom in broadband usage is ramping up the energy requirements of communications networks. Green Touch says its approach of setting out a measurable goal that is rooted in hard science is the best way of reversing this increase.
The Green Touch Initiative promises that within five years it will deliver a reference network architecture and demonstrations of the key components required to realise the 1,000-fold improvement in energy efficiency.
The first meeting of the consortium, due to take place in February, will be dedicated to establishing a five-year plan, first-year deliverables, and member roles and responsibilities.
For anyone interested in joining there is a website: www.greentouch.org