Why Ultra-low Power Computing Will Change Everything

By Jonathan Koomey

NOTE: This overview refers to a presentation, which may be viewed in its entirety at http://www.slideshare.net/jgkoomey/koomeytechtalk-v11

Jonathan Koomey, a Research Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, at Stanford University, offers evidence that computing efficiency has doubled about every 1.5 years since the 1940s, which also improves peak hour computations per KWh. This amounts to a factor of 100 improvement per decade. He states that this trend still has a long way to go.

He terms this a 'revolution' which has made mobile and distributed technologies feasible, and will support the 'internet of things'.

This trend will continue to have big implications for mobile technologies, and computing in general. This view was presented at an ARM conference. Of this talk, Dr. Koomey says, "This talk summarizes the implications of long-term trends in the efficiency of computing, communications, energy storage, and energy harvesting."