Do We Have Enough Electricity to Power the World's Computers?

Every year, there are more and more people online. According to data from Cisco, there were 600 million new devices and connections added to the mobile network last year. The number of mobile-connected PCs grew 4 percent to reach 125 million across the globe, and the number of smartphones grew 26 percent to reach 3,034 million. Meanwhile, 67 percent of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2020, a significant increase from the 36 percent of connections that we saw in 2015.
All this is to say, the number of computer and smartphone users is growing exponentially. And, while this has a positive impact upon business in the tech sector, it is also placing strain upon the world’s electrical capabilities.

Could computers max out the world’s production of electricity?

According to a new report published by the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Semiconductor Research Corporation, computing will not be sustainable by 2040 if current the current trajectory for computer users remains constant and the world’s energy production remains stable. Of course, it’s likely that the results of this report won’t come to fruition in the next 20 to 30 years. In reality, all signs point towards computers becoming more energy efficient and the globe’s electricity capacity to increase. Therefore, the report is more valuable as a reminder of the need to conserve energy on computing devices, rather than an accurate outlook for 2040.
Celia Merzbacher, VP of Innovative Partnerships at Semiconductor Research Council, corroborates this perspective, telling Semiconductor Engineering that this finding “is obviously a back-of-the-envelope extrapolation that is meant to make a point. . . . It’s not realistic to expect that the world’s energy production is going to be devoted 100% to computing so the question is, how do we do more with less and where are the opportunities for squeezing more out of the system?”

Lessons to be learned

What this new report does illustrate is that investment and innovation should be directed towards creating new computational systems: there is both need and opportunity in this market. The Daily Mail reports that strides are already being taken towards building more energy efficient computers. For instance, in March researchers illustrated that it may be possible to make a chip that operates with the lowest energy possible under the laws of physics. This chip could cut the amount of energy used in computers by a factor of one million. But of course, it is in an initial research phase, and it will take years until a product like this hits the market.
In the interim, investors keen on the computer market should probably look towards the large, well established computer stocks like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Canon (NYSE:CAJ), EMC (NYSE:EMC), HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Sony (NYSE:SNE). For an industry so focused upon hardware, these big companies have the most resources to dedicate to R&D and targeted acquisitions. Therefore, they will probably be some of the first companies to make mass market strides towards more energy efficient machines, thus staving off such alarming predictions about the world’s limited electrical capacity.
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