By Rachel Robey
A proposal founded on approximate computing techniques takes first place at a recent “reverse pitch” competition aimed at helping Google reduce the environmental impact of its data centers.
Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI) informs, automates, and guides our lives. But to do so, it consumes increased amounts of power.
Most of this happens in corporate data centers, where data storage and processing both facilitates our AI habit and complicates global sustainability goals. So how does a company like Google—a leader in the AI space race with a lofty goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2030—maintain progress towards reducing the carbon footprint of its data centers?
By turning to some of AI’s staunchest advocates: science-minded college students.
Campus competition invites innovative environmental solutions
In November, Google representatives joined the Department of Computer Sciences’ N+1 Institute for a campus-wide “reverse pitch” competition to reduce the environmental impact of data centers. A reverse pitch follows a distinct format: businesses present a problem, which entrants are tasked with solving. The best proposals are awarded (in this case, with scholarships and a suite of Google products) and maybe even put into practice.
“A reverse pitch competition is one of many ways N+1 members can fuel innovative thinking, engage with an exceptionally talented student population, and focus attention on meaningful real-world challenges,” says David Ertl, executive director of N+1. “A collaboration with Google on sustainable AI isn’t just an incredible opportunity for our students—it’s also addressing an industry-wide paradox of AI rewards versus environmental risks.”
The inaugural competition, which kicked off in early October, was the first of its kind for N+1, which launched earlier this year. 78 total registrants representing numerous units from all across campus—Computer Sciences, Information Science, Statistics, Economics, Biological Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Physics, Mathematics, Supply Chain Management, Biochemistry, Environmental Sciences, Business, and Life Sciences Communication—yielded 21 total proposals.
Of these, six final teams pitched their solutions to a panel of judges including Milo Martin (Google), Tyler Huebner (Google), Philip Wells (Google), Brian H. Potts (Husch Blackwell), and Max Duckworth (MaSa Partners). ECE PhD students Asmita Pal, Zhewen Pan, and Elise Song were named winners at the November 6 judging event.
“We were impressed with the talented UW students and the innovative ideas they presented to further improve the sustainability of our data centers,” said Tyler Huebner, a Madison-based Google employee who advances energy sustainability for the company. “These students applied their expertise to this unique and timely sustainability challenge for our business. This collaboration was a lot of fun, and mutually beneficial for the students and Google.”
Approximate computing creates a definitive winner
Pal, Pan, and Song are members of the Systems and Technologies Across the Computing Stack (STACS) Lab led by ECE Professor Joshua San Miguel, a researcher in approximate, stochastic, and intermittent computing. After hearing about the competition, he urged his group to enter and apply their ongoing research in approximate computing—an emerging paradigm which trades a tolerable loss in precision for notable gains in energy efficiency and performance—to a real-world problem. Their solution coupled “good enough” measures to reduce total power consumption with practical steps like reusing memory components of existing hardware to double its lifespan.
“We actually came up with the beginnings of our idea over the summer, but the competition pushed us to flesh out the concrete details,” says Song. “We knew we wanted to use approximation techniques to extend hardware lifetime, but the proposal process encouraged us to get more granular and bring in ideas like cloud computing protocols and dynamic random-access memory.”
The unique format of the competition encouraged students to innovate on behalf of Google, giving them a new perspective on research outcomes. “It required us to think a lot more about the impact,” says Pan. “It’s completely different from pure research where you just focus on novel contributions.”
Instead, the teams had to think about highly practical matters. “We had to look at cost, which you generally don’t do for a research paper,” says Pal. “Our proposal didn’t just decrease energy consumption—we also saw a reduction of billions of dollars in cost. It was a new way of looking at potential impact.”
Diversity of ideas is “the best part” of industry-led competitions
For Google, the benefits of hosting a competition on a college campus are wide-ranging, including solicitation of fresh ideas and discovering new recruitable talent. Additionally, UW–Madison—recently named sixth in national research rankings by NSF’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey—is a valuable partner in its own right.
For students, getting to hear from other student researchers across campus was a highlight.
“The best part was definitely seeing outside of our bubble,” says Song. Other teams pitched ideas related to the cooling systems infrastructure, locations of future data centers, and development of climate emissions apps. Song credits seeing solutions outside her typical ECE framework with expanding her concept of innovation and problem-solving.
“It was cool to see participation from other disciplines on campus that we as ECE students don’t typically overlap with,” continues Pal. “The final presentation that we attended showed us all these alternative ideas for tackling the same problem. In the future, collaborative teams might generate really cool ideas for competitions like this.”
According to Ertl, increasing cross-discipline collaboration is a goal for future industry-led competitions. “The UW is special in its breadth of excellence, and there’s room for further innovation if we can get our students to start working collectively,” he says. “Based on the caliber of ideas we gathered at this first-ever reverse pitch, I have no doubt that future competitions will be able to go even farther.”
To stay up to date with future competitions and industry collaboration opportunities, check out the N+1 Institute’s homepage and follow the Department of Computer Sciences on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.