Right now data centres are estimated to be responsible for up to 3% of global electricity consumption today and are projected to touch 4% by 2030. If no action is taken, this will grow to 21% by 2030. Radboud physics professor Alexey Kimel advocated radical change: “Modern electronics have to become ever faster and smaller. However, the laws of physics state that the higher the speed, the more energy it takes. The increasing demand for cloud storage – of all our Facebook and WhatsApp traffic, for example – is causing data centres to become overheated, with a lot of energy being required to cool their processors. To continue to meet this demand, new technologies are necessary for superfast storage without heat production.”
Magnetic switching
For more than twenty years, Prof. Alexey Kimel and his colleagues have been searching for the best possible way to use laser light to influence the magnetization of materials. According to Kimel, “This technique is still a physics terra incognita, but it should offer a solution to the problem that our current data storage methods require more and more energy.” With the COMRAD project, he takes the next step: developing and fabricating a cold optomagnetic memory device for data centres and other applications, for example in super-computers. COMRAD aims to demonstrate how to decrease the dissipated heat in data storage at least by a factor of 10.
Training the next generation scientists
Next to developing a cold optomagnetic memory device, COMRAD also focuses on training the next generation scientists, that can bring this technology further in the future. They will be part of an internationally renowned teams from experimental, computational, theoretical physics, material science, device physics and industry, and they will get access to unique research facilities like HFML-FELIX at Radboud University. In this way, the development of fundamentally new ways of data storage will be secured both during and after the project.
Consortium
The public-private consortium consists of: Radboud University, University of Cambridge, University of Regensburg, University of Bialystok, University of York, SPINTEC, Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior Investigacione s Científicas, Eindhoven University of Technology, Université de Lorraine, Forschungsz entrum Jülich GmbH, THALES, Lancaster University, Interactive Fully Electrical Vehicles srl I-FEVS and partner organisations TECHNO-NT, Torino e-district, Hitachi and NXP Semiconductors.
