As part of Intel's annual investor meeting taking place today, Raja Koduri, Intel's SVP and GM of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) Group delivered an update to investors on the state of Intel's GPU and accelerator group, including some fresh news on the state of Intel's first generation of Arc graphics products. AnandTech: Among other things, the GPU frontman confirmed that while Intel will indeed ship the first Arc mobile products in the current quarter, desktop products will not come until Q2. Meanwhile, in the first disclosure of chip volumes, Intel is now projecting that they'll ship 4mil+ Arc GPUs this year. In terms of timing, today's disclosure confirms some earlier suspicions that developed following Intel's CES 2022 presentation: that the company would get its mobile Arc products out before their desktop products. Desktop products will now follow in the second quarter of this year, a couple of months behind the mobile parts. And finally, workstation products, which Intel has previously hinted at, are on their way and will land in Q3.

A group of 21 industry groups aligned with the automotive and technology sectors is calling for Congress to finalize work on a bill to fund increased domestic chip production. From a report: Congress in 2021 authorized federal spending on research and design initiatives to boost domestic chip production and create a subsidy for domestic manufacturers. But the money still needs to be included in an appropriation measure before it can be doled out.

"It is essential Congress act swiftly to provide funding to make this law a reality," the groups wrote in a letter to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. A global semiconductor shortage that traces its origins back to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 has hampered U.S. car manufacturing and increased prices for consumers. Carmakers are competing with other makers of other electronic devices affected by the shortage, such as computers and mobile phones, for chips that have remained scarce for more than a year.

Robots are being trialled to deliver food and other items in South Korea, which is planning to allow them on roads from 2023. Nikkei Asia reports: Woowa Brothers, operator of the country's biggest food delivery app, started using robots on a trial basis in 2020 while a convenience store chain started in November 2021. The government plans to develop such robots for export in the future. For now, the government is working to give the robots a legal definition by the end of this year so that they can be allowed to operate on roads. They are currently banned on roads as the law treats them as unmanned "vehicles." As a trial, the government has established a special zone around an apartment complex in Suwon, a city on the outskirts of Seoul, where Woowa has begun a food delivery service using a robot it developed. The robot is called "Dilly Drive" and stands about 70 cm high.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The newest entrant in the fight for EV market share is going back to the future with an all-electric DeLorean. The infamous gull-winged car is being resurrected in Texas by a group of executives who most recently spent time at China-backed EV startup Karma Automotive. They're working with Stephen Wynne, who acquired the DeLorean branding rights in the 1990s and supplies parts for the 6,000 or so remaining vehicles. [...] The new company is called DeLorean Motors Reimagined LLC and its chief executive officer is Joost de Vries, Texas business records and LinkedIn postings show. The firm will set up a headquarters and an engineering outfit in San Antonio, with potential to bring 450 jobs, the city's development arm said in a statement.

It's not the first time the idea of a DeLorean redux has surfaced -- web searches turn up stories every few years about how Wynne has tried to revive the brand or produce low-volume models -- but using an electric powertrain is a new twist on the idea. The original car gained notoriety in the early 1980s both for its quality problems and for the legal woes of its creator, the late John DeLorean, before the "Back to the Future" film franchise turned it into a pop-culture icon.

Newegg has apologised for dealing poorly with returns and open-box product sales, in the wake of a recent video from Gamers Nexus documenting its own terrible returns experience. From a report: The online retailer has now said it has now put in place new policies to ensure a hassle-free return experience on open-box products for motherboards and CPUs, though is light on the details. There's no doubt that the statement tweeted out by the company comes as a response to Gamers Nexus' recent videos outlining the channel's return experience for a Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Z490 motherboard, which when combined total nearly two million views. It goes something like this: The hardware YouTube channel bought a motherboard via Newegg for testing, though shortly thereafter decided it was no longer required. It then sought to return the motherboard under Newegg's returns policy and shipped the product back to the retailer.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: France is planning to build up to 14 nuclear reactors in an attempt to shore up the country's aging nuclear fleet while also reducing the country's carbon emissions. And while the first reactors won't open for years, the announcement could serve to undercut Russia's attempts to keep Europe dependent on natural gas. President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision last week, saying that state-backed Electricite de France, also known as EDF, will build six new plants starting in 2028, with the option to build another eight by 2050. EDF estimates that six next-generation pressurized water reactors will cost around $57 billion. The first could be commissioned as early as 2035.

The move is a sharp reversal of Macron's earlier pledge to close several reactors over the next decade or so. National politics almost certainly play a role -- the nuclear power sector in France employs around 220,000 people, according to one estimate. "What our country needs is the rebirth of France's nuclear industry," Macron said at a nuclear turbine factory that EDF had just purchased from GE. "The time has come for a nuclear renaissance," he said. Macron also said that EDF will build a prototype small modular reactor, or SMR, by 2030. SMRs are fission reactors that are designed to be built in a factory and transported to their final destination. They generally produce less than 1 MW of power and are intended to be more economical than traditional reactors, which are constructed on-site. EDF will face stiff competition from numerous companies, from heavyweights like Westinghouse to startups like NuScale and Chinese firms like China Huaneng Group, which are pushing to commercialize SMRs.

France's new plans were announced less than two weeks after the EU announced that nuclear power would be considered "sustainable," a decision that was subject to intense lobbying by the French government. It also comes at a time of heightened tensions with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Russia has flooded the EU with cheap natural gas, leaving the bloc dependent on the country for much of its energy. In 2020, the EU received more than 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which could double Russian exports to the region, appears likely to increase the bloc's dependence. Macron's announcement, while possibly coincidental, could signal that France is interested in taking over as Europe's power center.

New York State broke ground on Friday on its first offshore wind farm, kicking off a boom in similar projects aimed at transforming the state's -- and the nation's -- energy mix. The Verge reports: The South Fork Wind project off the coast of Long Island is expected to be operational by the end of 2023. New York has the largest pipeline of offshore wind projects underway of any state in the nation, with five in active development. South Fork Wind is being billed as one of the first-ever commercial-scale offshore wind farms in North America. Once completed, it should be able to generate 130 megawatts (MW) of power -- enough to power 70,000 homes in nearby East Hampton.

That alone amounts to a major scaling up of offshore wind capacity in the US. The nation so far only has two operational wind farms along its coasts -- off the shores of Rhode Island and Virginia -- with a combined capacity of just 42 MW. That's set to change dramatically over the next few years. Orsted and Eversource, the energy companies developing South Fork, have an even bigger project in the works nearby: Sunrise Wind, a 924-MW wind farm that's expected to break ground next year. Altogether, all the offshore projects under development in New York state's current portfolio total over 4,300 MW of clean energy. By 2035, the state hopes to harness more than twice as much renewable energy from offshore wind.

AMD on Monday completed the acquisition of Xilinx, creating a company that can offer various types of compute devices, including CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs. Tom's Hardware reports: AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su told analyst Patrick Moorhead that the first processor combining Xilinx technologies will arrive in 2023, which is in contrast to the company's previous integration efforts. After AMD bought ATI Technologies in 2006, it took the company five years to build its first accelerated processing units (which included AMD's x86 cores and ATI's GPU). This time AMD inked a long-term development pact with Xilinx and was able to work collaboratively even before the regulators approved the transaction. It remains to be seen what exactly AMD plans to offer, but it is reasonable to expect the new processor to feature AMD's x86 cores and Xilinx's programmable engines.

The move will help AMD to continue expanding its presence in the datacenter sector and offer unique solutions that will combine IP ingredients designed by the two companies. Interestingly, the first fruits of the deal are expected to materialize next year. [...] The Xilinx business will become AMD's Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group (AECG), led by former Xilinx CEO Victor Peng. As a result, Xilinx will maintain its leadership for at least a while. Furthermore, AMD's embedded business will cease to be a part of the company's enterprise and semi-custom unit and will merge into AECG, which might be good news as executives from the enterprise division will now spend more time on EPYC CPUs. "The acquisition of Xilinx brings together a highly complementary set of products, customers and markets combined with differentiated IP and world-class talent to create the industry's high-performance and adaptive computing leader," said Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD. "Xilinx offers industry-leading FPGAs, adaptive SoCs, AI inference engines and software expertise that enable AMD to offer the strongest portfolio of high-performance and adaptive computing solutions in the industry and capture a larger share of the approximately $135 billion market opportunity we see across cloud, edge, and intelligent devices."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2014, Google made a remarkable offer: anyone with a Google Apps for Education account in the US got unlimited storage for free. The logic was sound at the time. Three years earlier, the tech giant had launched the Chromebook -- cheap, robust and secure, the web-browser-based kit was a natural fit for education. The cloud was its primary storage, so what could be better than making that bigger than any hard disk in a Mac or Windows PC could ever swallow? The idea was that if you catch users when they are young, they're yours for life. The axiom had already been tested by both Apple and Microsoft, with creative types and workers in jobs with sensible shoes respectively. Google played on its own strengths as the first cloud-native platform for everyone. And lo, it was good. Seven years later, Google has killed the deal.

In place of all you can stash, each institution in the scheme was getting a total pool of 100TB to give to student and teacher alike. If they wanted anything more, the cash register was open. For a small primary school with a couple of hundred pupils, this was perfectly adequate. A large science-heavy university could have a single experiment using that much, however. That announcement was a year ago, and gave existing users 18 months of grace, with new users denied the unlimited package from, well, now. Those with experience of academic deadlines won't be surprised that it has taken this long for lots of people to notice.

France president Emmanuel Macron "has announced a 'renaissance' for the French nuclear industry," reports the Guardian, with plans to build at least six new reactors by 2050 and as many as 14, "arguing that it would help end the country's reliance on fossil fuels and make France carbon neutral by 2050...." Atomic energy provides about 70% of French electricity, and low-cost nuclear power has been a mainstay of the French economy since the 1970s, but recent attempts to build new-generation reactors to replace older models have become mired in cost overruns and delays. Presidential candidates on the right have supported more nuclear power plants saying France should have "sovereignty" over its electricity, while detractors on the left have warned of the cost and complexity of building new reactors. Environmentalists have raised safety concerns over radioactive waste that remains deadly for tens of thousands of years.

Macron said French nuclear regulators were "unequalled" in their rigour and professionalism and that the decision to build new nuclear power plants was a "choice of progress, a choice of confidence in science and technology".

He also announced a major acceleration in the development of solar and offshore wind power. He said France had no choice but to rely on renewables and nuclear and that the country would also have to consume significantly less energy in the next decades.

He said he would seek to extend the lives of all existing French nuclear plants where it was safe to do so....

The French government lobbied hard and successfully to get the European Commission to label nuclear power "green" this month in a landmark review which means it can attract funding as a climate-friendly power source.

Reuters reports: The White House is warning the chip industry to diversify its supply chain in case Russia retaliates against threatened U.S. export curbs by blocking access to key materials, people familiar with the matter said.

The potential for retaliation has garnered more attention in recent days after Techcet, a market research group, published a report on February 1 highlighting the reliance of many semiconductor manufacturers on Russian and Ukrainian-sourced materials like neon, palladium and others. According to Techcet estimates, over 90 percent of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon supplies come from Ukraine, while 35 percent of U.S. palladium is sourced from Russia. Peter Harrell, who sits of the White House's National Security Council, and his staff have been in touch with members of the chip industry in recent days, learning about their exposure to Russian and Ukrainian chipmaking materials and urging them to find alternative sources, the people said.
A "senior official" told Reuters, "We understand that other sources of key products are available and stand ready to work with our companies to help them identify and diversify their supplies."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the story.

"When Brent Whitehead and Matt Lohstroh were sophomores at Texas A&M University, they decided to get into the business of mining bitcoin on the oil fields of East Texas," reports CNBC: Whitehead, an engineer hailing from a family with a long history in oil and gas production, and Lohstroh, a finance major with a bitcoin obsession, ignored the skeptics, and sunk all the cash they had earned from their high school side gigs in lawn care and landscaping into Giga Energy Solutions, a company that mints bitcoin from stranded natural gas.

For years, oil and gas companies have struggled with the problem of what to do when they accidentally hit a natural gas formation while drilling for oil. Whereas oil can easily be trucked out to a remote destination, gas delivery requires a pipeline. If a drilling site is right next door to a pipeline, they chuck the gas in and take whatever cash the buyer on the other end is willing to pay that day. But if it's 20 miles from a pipeline, drillers often burn it off, or flare it. That is why you will typically see flames rising from oil fields. Beyond the environmental implications of flare gas, drillers are also, in effect, burning cash. To these two 23-year-old Aggie alums, it was a big problem with an obvious solution.

Giga places a shipping container full of thousands of bitcoin miners on an oil well, then diverts the natural gas into generators, which convert the gas into electricity that is then used to power the miners. The process reduces CO2-equivalent emissions by about 63% compared to continued flaring, according to research from Denver-based Crusoe Energy Systems. "Growing up, I always saw flares, just being in the oil and gas industry. I knew how wasteful it was," Whitehead told CNBC on the sidelines of the North American Prospect Expo summit in Houston, a flagship event for the industry. "It's a new way to not only lower emissions but to monetize gas." Whitehead tells CNBC they have signed deals with more than 20 oil and gas companies, four of which are publicly traded. Giga also says they're also in talks with sovereign wealth funds, and they are expanding, fast.

Giga's 11-person team is adding another six employees this month.... Giga tells CNBC that its revenue was more than $4 million in 2021, and it's on track to earn more than $20 million by the end of 2022. Whitehead says that some of their mining sites have helped to revitalize the local economy by creating jobs, such as field technicians and bitcoin pumpers, who go out to check the sites. In the small communities where they've set up a bitcoin mine, they are sometimes the largest source of revenue. "An area that was just a ghost town has now found ways to take their stranded energy that they were wasting and monetize it, and that's what gets me excited, because like that's what is helping the community overall," said Whitehead.

The Linux 5.18 kernel is adding support this spring for the Intel Hardware Feedback Interface to make better decisions about where to place given work among available CPU cores/threads, reports Phoronix.

This is significant because Intel's Alder Lake CPUs "are the first x86-64 processors to embrace a hybrid paradigm with two separate CPU architectures on the same die," explains Hot Hardware: These two separate CPU architectures have different strengths and capabilities. The Golden Cove "performance cores" (or P-cores) feature Intel's latest high-performance desktop CPU architecture, and they are blisteringly fast. Meanwhile, the Gracemont "efficiency cores" (or E-cores) are so small that four of them, along with 2MB of shared L2 cache, can nearly fit in the same space as a single Golden Cove core. They're slower than the Golden Cove cores, but also much more efficient, at least in theory.

The idea is that background tasks and light workloads can be run on the E-cores, saving power, while latency-sensitive and compute-intensive tasks can be run on the faster P-cores. The benefits of this may not have been exactly as clear as Intel would have liked on Windows, but they were even less visible on Linux. That's because Linux isn't aware of the unusual configuration of Alder Lake CPUs.

Well, that's changing in Linux 5.18, slated for release this spring. Linux 5.18 is bringing support for the Intel Enhanced Hardware Feedback Interface, or EHFI...

This is essentially the crux of Intel's "Thread Director," which is an intelligent, low-latency hardware-assisted scheduler.

Engineers at Drexel University have made a breakthrough they say takes [lithium-sulfur batteries] closer to commercial use, by leveraging a rare chemical phase of sulfur to prevent damaging chemical reactions. New Atlas reports: [T]here is one problem that scientists keep running into, which is the formation of chemical compounds called polysulfides. As the battery operates, these make their way into the electrolyte -- the solution that carries the charge back and forth between the anode and cathode -- where they trigger chemical reactions that compromise the battery's capacity and lifespan. Scientists have had some success swapping out the carbonate electrolyte for an ether electrolyte, which doesn't react with the polysulfides. But this poses other problems, as the ether electrolyte itself is highly volatile and contains components with low boiling points, meaning the battery could quickly fail or meltdown if warmed above room temperature.

The chemical engineers at Drexel University have been working on another solution and it starts with the design of a new cathode, which can work with the carbonate electrolytes already in commercial use. This cathode is made from carbon nanofibers and had already been shown to slow the movement of polysulfides in an ether electrolyte. But making it work with a carbonate electrolyte involved some experimentation. The scientists attempted to confine the sulfur in the carbon nanofiber mesh to prevent the dangerous chemical reactions using a technique called vapor disposition. This didn't quite have the desired effect, but as it turned out, actually crystallized the sulfur in an unexpected way and turned it into something called monoclinic gamma-phase sulfur, a slightly altered form of the element. This chemical phase of sulfur had only been produced at high temperatures in the lab or observed in oil wells in nature. Conveniently for the scientists, it is not reactive with the carbonate electrolyte, thereby removing the risk of polysulfide formation.

The cathode remained stable across a year of testing and 4,000 charge-discharge cycles, which the scientists say is equivalent to 10 years of regular use. The prototype battery the team made featuring this cathode offered triple the capacity of a standard lithium-ion battery, paving the way for more environmentally friendly batteries that allow electric vehicles to travel much farther on each charge. The research was published in the journal Communications Chemistry.

At least some nuclear power plants in the US contain counterfeit parts that could pose significant risks, an investigation by the inspector general's office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found. Those parts "present nuclear safety and security concerns that could have serious consequences," says the resulting report (PDF) published on February 9th. The Verge reports: The investigation was conducted after unnamed individuals alleged that "most, if not all," nuclear plants in the US have fake or faulty parts. The inspector general's office uncovered problems with counterfeit parts at a few different plants as part of its investigation. The report also says that the DOE had separately flagged 100 "incidents" involving counterfeit parts just last year. It's a problem that the US will have to crack down on if it moves forward with plans to include nuclear power in its transition to clean energy. Without greater oversight at the NRC, the report warns, the risk of counterfeit parts going unnoticed in the nation's nuclear power plants could rise.

As part of its inquiry, the inspector general's office looked for parts that are illegally altered to look like legitimate products, parts that are "intentionally misrepresented to deceive," and parts that don't meet product specifications. It sampled four power plants across the US and found evidence of counterfeit parts at one of those plants in the midwest. It also points to nuclear power plants in the Northeast, separate from those it sampled, where a "well-placed NRC principal" found that counterfeit parts were involved in two separate component failures.

The NRC might be underestimating the prevalence of counterfeit parts, the report warns, because the regulatory agency doesn't have a robust system in place for tracking problematic parts. It only requires plants to report counterfeits in extraordinary circumstances, like if they lead to an emergency shutdown of a reactor. The report also notes that the NRC hasn't thoroughly investigated all counterfeit allegations. There were 55 nuclear power plants operating in the US as of September 2021, and the inspector general's office sampled just four for its report. NRC Public Affairs Officer Scott Burnell told The Verge in an email that "nothing in the report suggests an immediate safety concern. The NRC's office of the Executive Director for Operations is thoroughly reviewing the report and will direct the agency's program offices to take appropriate action."

A European wide 'supergrid' could cut almost a third from energy costs according to a new study from the UCD Energy Institute. TechXplore reports: Evaluating the capabilities of Europe's energy network, the study, commissioned by SuperNode, found that a pan-European transmission system would reduce energy costs by 32 percent compared to the current approach. The 32 percent cost reduction identified is borne primarily from the expansion of European power flows -- derestricting them to allow the location of renewable generation to be optimized, thereby significantly decreasing the total installed capacity. While this scenario proposes an increase in transmission capacity, the costs were found to be insignificant compared to the cost savings in generation investment over the same period.

This study was an extension of work carried out by SuperNod, based on their Energy Scenario for Europe 2050 modeling -- which aims to predict future energy trends across the continent. Its modelling work, validated and extended by the UCD study and facilitated through ConsultUCD, demonstrates the net benefit of large investment into the development of new transmission assets to ensure more efficient utilization of Europe's renewable resources; highlighting bottlenecks where investment is required, such as higher levels of grid storage. [...] Another key finding from the UCD study is that the existing transmission system is not fit for purpose for Europe's energy future. Without accelerated investment in infrastructure, Europe will face challenges with load shedding, generation curtailment and excessively high emissions. The failure to achieve decarbonisation targets will not just undermine international climate efforts but will adversely affect Europe's economies and ability to compete on a global scale, the report notes. The study has been broken into two parts (PDFs).

Intel's mysterious Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) mechanism for adding features to Xeon CPUs will be officially supported in Linux 5.18, the next major release of the operating system. Tom's Hardware reports: SDSi allows users to add features to their CPU after they've already purchased it. Formal SDSi support means that the technology is coming to Intel's Xeon processors that will be released rather shortly, implying Sapphire Rapids will be the first CPUs with SDSi. Intel started to roll out Linux patches to enable its SDSi functionality in the OS last September. By now, several sets of patches have been released and it looks like they will be added to Linux 5.18, which is due this Spring. Hans de Goede, a long-time Linux developer who works at Red Hat on a wide array of hardware enablement related projects, claims that SDSi will land in Linux 5.18 if no problems emerge, reports Phoronix. "Assuming no major issues are found, the plan definitely is to get this in before the 5.18 merge window," said de Goede.

Intel Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) is a mechanism for activating additional silicon features in already produced and deployed server CPUs using the software. While formal support for the functionality is coming to Linux 5.18 and is set to be available this spring, Intel hasn't disclosed what exactly it plans to enable using its pay-as-you-go CPU upgrade model. We don't know how it works and what it enables, but we can make some educated guesses. [...]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Starting this year, the federal government will begin doling out $5 billion to states over five years to build a nationwide network of fast chargers. The plan initially focuses on the Interstate Highway System, directing states to build one charging station every 50 miles. Those stations must be capable of charging at least four EVs simultaneously at 150 kW. Once states have completed the Interstate charging network, they'll be able to apply for grants to fill in gaps elsewhere. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, a new agency formed to help the Transportation and Energy Departments administer the program, will allow case-by-case exceptions to the 50-mile requirement if, for example, no grid connection is available nearby.

Funding for the initial Interstate portion of the program will be allocated using a formula that mimics how federal highway grants are distributed. Starting in fiscal year 2022, $615 million will be available to build charging stations, and $300 million will be allocated to set up the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. Ten percent of each year's funding will go toward filling gaps in the network. After the initial $5 billion program is launched, another $2.5 billion in discretionary grants will be available to build chargers in rural and underserved areas.

As part of their plans submitted to the federal government, states will need to ensure that the charging stations will be reliable -- at least one charger per station needs to be working more than 97 percent of the time -- and that they will limit their impact on the electric grid. States are also directed to design stations so they can be easily expanded and upgraded as demand grows and charging rates increase. The new program also encourages states to site chargers near travel centers, convenience stores, visitor centers, or restaurants. To get credit for their Interstate build-out, states will have to install chargers that use the Combined Charging System, also known as CCS. [...] The new program also prioritizes domestic production of chargers, which has already spurred some manufacturers to begin setting up operations in the US. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg says the agency is looking at how people will pay for charging. "Part of this program is going to be a shared standard. If we're going to use taxpayers' dollars to help private actors put in charging stations, then of course we need to make sure the citizen is getting good value out of it. There may be any number of network benefits through loyalty programs. That's fine," he said, "but we've got to make sure... everybody can benefit."

Western Digital said on Wednesday certain materials at two of its manufacturing units in Japan, operated by joint-venture partner Kioxia Holdings, were contaminated and will result in reduced availability of flash storage devices. From a report: According to the company's current assessment, there would be a shortage of at least 6.5 exabytes in flash storage availability. One exabyte equals one billion gigabytes. Western Digital is working closely with Kioxia to implement necessary measures that will restore the facilities to normal operational status as quickly as possible.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Recently, two computer scientists had an idea: if computers use energy to perform calculations, could stored data be a form of stored energy? Why not use computing as a way to store energy? What if information could be a battery, man? As it turns out, the idea isn't as far-fetched as it may sound. The "information battery" concept, fleshed out in a recent paper (PDF), would perform certain computations in advance when power is cheap -- like when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing -- and cache the results for later. The process could help data centers replace up to 30 percent of their energy use with surplus renewable power.

The beauty of the system is that it requires no specialized hardware and imposes very little overhead. "Information Batteries are designed to work with existing data centers," write authors Jennifer Switzer, a doctoral student at UC San Diego, and Barath Raghavan, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California. "Some very limited processing power is reserved for the IB [information battery] manager, which manages the scheduling of both real-time computational tasks and precomputation. A cluster of machines or VMs is designated for precomputation. The IB cache, which stores the results of these precomputations, is kept local for quick retrieval. No additional infrastructure is needed."

In the model Switzer and Raghavan created to test the concept, the IB manager queried grid operators every five minutes -- the smallest time interval the operators offered -- to check the price of power to inform its predictions. When prices dipped below a set threshold, the manager green-lit a batch of computations and cached them for later. The system was pretty effective at reducing the need for expensive "grid power," as the authors call it, even when the pre-computation engine did a relatively poor job of predicting which tasks would be needed in the near future. At just 30 percent accuracy, the manager could begin to make the most of the so-called "opportunity power" that is created when there is excess wind or solar power. In a typical large data center, workloads can be predicted around 90 minutes in advance with about 90 percent accuracy, the authors write. With a more conservative prediction window of 60 minutes, "such a data center could store 150 MWh, significantly more than most grid-scale battery-based storage projects," they say. An equivalent grid-scale battery would cost around $50 million, they note.