Jan 28, 2025 21:00:00

By modifying just 30 lines of Linux code, data center power consumption can be reduced by up to 30%, which will be reflected in Linux 6.13

'The way data centers process data traffic can be made more efficient,' said

Martin Karsten , a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who has proposed code modifications that will be reflected in Linux 6.13. The modifications are said to be able to reduce energy consumption in major data centers by up to 30%.

Coding for a greener internet | Waterloo News | University of Waterloo
https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/coding-greener-internet

Changing Linux code could cut data center energy use by 30%, researchers claim - DCD
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/changing-linux-code-could-cut-data-center-energy-use-by-30-researchers-claim/

Linux is the most common operating system in data centers. When computer science professor Karsten and graduate student Peter Cai discovered that the way data centers handled data traffic was inefficient, they came up with a small change to make it more efficient.

Professor Karsten

by University of Waterloo

According to Professor Carsten, they did not add any code, but simply rearranged 'what to run and when' to significantly increase the CPU cache utilization in the data center. Professor Carsten explains the change as 'like rearranging the pipes in a manufacturing plant so that employees don't have to run around all the time.'

Professor Karsten teamed up with Joe D'Amato , a Fastly engineer, to write about 30 lines of code to improve network traffic processing, which he says will cut energy consumption in major data centers by up to 30%.

After the code was tested for validity, it was delivered to Linux and became part of Linux 6.13, which will be released on Monday, January 27, 2025.

According to Professor Carsten, if Amazon, Google, Meta and others were to use this code in their data centers, it could save gigawatt-hours of energy around the world.