With global Electricity requirement The number of information centers is anticipated to greater than double by 2030. The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) launched an initiative in September that brings together MIT researchers and industry experts to explore revolutionary solutions for the data-driven future. At its annual research conference, MITEI announced the Data Center Power Forum, a targeted research initiative for MITEI member corporations in search of to deal with data center power challenges. The Data Center Power Forum builds on insights from the May 2025 MITEI Symposium on Power to Drive Artificial Intelligence (AI) Expansion and Data Center Focus Panels on the Fall 2024 Research Conference.
In the United States, data centers consumed 4 percent of the country's electricity in 2023, with demand expected to rise to 9 percent by 2030, in response to the Electric Power Research Institute. Much of the demand growth is because of the increasing use of AI, which is placing unprecedented strain on the ability grid. This surge in demand poses a serious challenge to the technology and energy sectors, government policymakers and on a regular basis consumers whose electricity bills may skyrocket consequently.
“MITEI has long supported research into ways to generate more efficient and cleaner energy and manage the electrical grid. In recent years, MITEI has also funded dozens of research projects related to data center energy issues. Building on this history and knowledge base, MITEI's Data Center Power Forum brings together a specialized community of industry members with a critical interest within the sustainable growth of AI and accelerating solutions for powering data centers and expanding the grid,” said William H. Green, MITEI's Director and the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering.
MITEI's mission is to advance zero- and low-carbon solutions to expand energy access and mitigate climate change. MITEI works with corporations across the energy innovation chain, including infrastructure, automotive, electricity, energy, natural resources and insurance. MITEI member corporations have expressed strong interest within the Data Center Power Forum and are committed to supporting targeted research on a broad range of power issues related to data center expansion, says Green.
MITEI's Data Center Power Forum provides its member corporations with reliable insights into energy supply, network load operations and management, the built environment, in addition to electricity market design and data center regulatory policy. The forum complements MIT's extensive expertise on related topics comparable to low-power processors, efficient algorithms, task-specific AI, photonic devices, quantum computing, and the societal consequences of information center expansion. As a part of the forum, MITEI's Future Energy Systems Center will fund projects relevant to data center energy in its upcoming proposal cycles. MITEI research scientist Deep Deka has been appointed because the forum's program manager.
“Figuring out the right way to meet the ability needs of information centers is an advanced challenge. Our research approaches this from multiple directions: from finding ways to expand transmission capability throughout the power grid to get power where it is required, to making sure that the standard of power for existing users will not be compromised as recent data centers come online, to offloading computing tasks to times and locations where and when power is obtainable on the grid,” said Deca.
MITEI is currently sponsoring extensive research on data center energy topics across several MIT departments. The existing research portfolio includes greater than a dozen data center-related projects, including low or zero-carbon solutions for energy supply and infrastructure, power grid management and electricity market policy. MIT researchers funded by the MITEI Industrial Consortium are also designing more energy-efficient power electronics and processors and studying low/zero-carbon behind-the-meter power plants and energy storage. MITEI-supported experts study how AI may be used to optimize data center power distribution and site, and conduct techno-economic evaluation of information center energy systems. MITEI's consortium projects also bring recent perspectives to data center cooling challenges and consider policy approaches to balance shareholder interests.
By bringing together industry players from across the AI and grid value chain, the Data Center Power Forum enables a broader dialogue on solutions to energy, grid and carbon management problems in a non-commercial and collaborative environment.
“The opportunity to satisfy and discuss key challenges in the info center with other forum members from various sectors, in addition to MIT faculty members and research scientists, is a novel advantage of this MITEI-led initiative,” says Green.
MITEI and its corporate members addressed the problem of information center power requirements in the autumn of 2024 Annual Research Conference with a panel discussion titled “The Extreme Challenge of Powering Data Centers in a Decarbonized Way.” MITEI research director Randall Field led a discussion with representatives from major tech corporations Google and Microsoft, generally known as “hyperscalers,” in addition to Madrid-based infrastructure developer Ferrovial SE and utility company Exelon Corp. Another conference session addressed the related topic of “energy storage and grid expansion.” This past spring, MITEI focused on its annual event Spring Symposium about data centers, where faculty members and researchers from MIT and other universities, business leaders and a representative from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held a daylong session on “AI and Energy: Danger and Promise.”
