Rising power demand by data centers increases energy costs to business and government, strains the existing power grid, and typically increases greenhouse gas emissions. The convergence of technologies used by data centers and telecommunications services creates the opportunity to leverage technology development for both sectors. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program seeks to work with industry partners to move beyond incremental efficiency improvements to envision radically more energy-efficient information and communications technology (ICT) facilities.

Energetics worked with ITP, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Telecommunications Industry Association, Emerson Network Power, and Yahoo! Inc. to hold an invitation-only workshop in October 2008. Energetics planned and facilitated the two-day meeting to elicit and synthesize input from experts, including facility operators, equipment and software developers, university and laboratory researchers, commercial vendors, industry associations, and others in the ICT community. Energetics worked with experts in the National Laboratories and industry to summarize, categorize, and edit the results; reviewed and incorporated additional industry input; integrated industry feedback; and posted the draft vision and roadmap document for wider industry review and comment.