{"id":19987,"date":"2025-01-03T14:08:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T19:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/igs\/?page_id=19987"},"modified":"2025-11-19T16:20:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:20:42","slug":"limits-to-digitalization","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/igs\/research\/limits-to-digitalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Limits to Digitalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

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News<\/h2>\n
\"Working<\/a> $1.1 Million Awarded to Joint Study on Impacts of Data Centers in Norway\u2019s Clean Energy Transition<\/a> (7\/13\/2023)<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

Making data centers more sustainable.<\/h2>\n

Norway’s ambition to be a global digital infrastructure hub has led to a surge in energy demand, supercharged by AI’s rapid growth \u2014 raising critical questions about the benefits and challenges of digitalization.<\/p>\n

Backed by the Research Council of Norway, the Limits to Digitalization (L2D) project<\/a> looks at data center sustainability in the country’s clean energy transition to identify the socio-environmental impacts of digital transformation. It’s a $1.1 million international research collaboration between NTNU Social Research and Boston University. Leading BU’s efforts are Ayse Coskun, Director of the BU Center for Information & Systems Engineering and part of IGS’s core faculty, and Benjamin Sovacool, Director of IGS.<\/p>\n

Research Approach and Goals<\/h3>\n

The study sets out to investigate the whole-systems justice issues around data center development, examine the use of data centers as resources in diverse energy markets, and design optimization models to improve data center efficiency.<\/p>\n

It will create a conceptual framework for digitalization that aims to:<\/p>\n