Solar-Powered Data Center Aims at Net Zero Energy Computing
MassNZ developed to be a hands-on research and educational resource
HOLYOKE, Mass. — The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), its member universities, and the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, have announced the launch of the Mass Net Zero Data Center (MassNZ), an experimental, solar-powered, micro data center that is the first of its kind in New England.
“We are excited to be part of a collaboration with such enormous implications,” said Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy of UMass Amherst, one of the MGHPCC’s founding institutions. “Data centers play an indispensable role in our increasingly connected world, but they are voracious users of energy. MassNZ is a hands-on research and educational resource that will help us understand how to decrease a data center’s energy footprint and increase its use of renewable energy in an era when we are striving to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.”