Microsoft is exploring data centers powered by fuel cells
(Phys.org) —Fuel cell powered data centers may not be ready today but Microsoft is exploring the idea in a vision of data centers that one day can get out from under reliance on the electricity grid. Microsoft has released a paper discussing the fuel cell-based data center power distribution system. "No More Electrical Infrastructure: Towards Fuel Cell Powered Data Centers" is authored by Ana Carolina Riekstin, Sean James, Aman Kansal, Jie Liu, and Eric Peterson. The authors said that "If the FCs are placed close to power consumption units, at the servers or racks, we can completely eliminate the power distribution system in the data center, including the power backup generation system. So, no data center wide electrical infrastructure is required."