09 March 2022
Fabless semiconductor company Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) has launched a project called ICeData that could contribute to saving more than eight megatons - that’s million metric tons - of CO2 emissions from data centres annually by 2030. The firm aims to develop and commercialise a highly efficient gallium nitride (GaN)- based integrated circuit (IC) for use in data centre server power supplies. “Exponential growth in demand for data storage and processing, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic where cloud-based connectivity became an essential tool for businesses around the world, is resulting in huge increases in data centre energy usage,” said Giorgia Longobardi, chief executive officer and founder, CGD. Data centres had an electricity consumption rate of 400TWh in 2018, which is set to double by the end of this decade.