The rapid growth of AI is straining the existing power grid. In response to the challenges presented by AI, the Bits & Watts Initiative is launching a new flagship program on Sustainably Powering AI and recently selected six research projects to support with seed grants. In this webinar, Prof. Philip Levis will introduce his seed grant project.

Electricity used for today’s machine learning training workloads can peak at 10 megawatts or even multiples of that. Then, when the computers stop processing to communicate their results, their power demand drops to about a fifth of their peak load in microseconds. These huge, synchronized load swings introduce enormous problems to the electric grid. This project seeks to research and build a power supply mechanism that ensures a computing rack’s load does not change quickly due to its energy storage. Data center operators have told the researchers that such a power supply would be much better than their current strategies to deal with the problem.

Philip Levis is Professor of Computer Science and of Electrical Engineering.

Note: This webinar will not be recorded, to allow for freer conversation. Please join us live!