AICFaculty FellowUC Berkeley

Robert Pilawa-Podgurski

Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Robert Pilawa-Podgurski is an AIC-Bakar Faculty Fellow and Professor in the EECS Department. He earned his degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Spark Award Project

Powering the AI Revolution: A New Voltage Regulator Enabling Direct 48-V-to-1-V Vertical Power Delivery for Next-Generation Ultra-High-Power Processors

High-performance processors are crucial for technologies like AI and autonomous vehicles, but their power usage is soaring, approaching 1000 W. This proposal seeks to make use of innovative tools and techniques designed in Pilawa-Podgurski’s lab to develop a hybrid switched-capacitor voltage regulation module for ultra-high-power processors that can achieve a 2x reduction in power conversion losses and a 4x reduction in physical size compared to state-of-the-art commercial products. This could reduce overall data center power usage by almost ten percent, benefiting both the environment and businesses.

Robert Pilawa-Podgurski’s Story

Powering the Future: How a Bakar Fellow is Cutting Energy Waste in Data Centers

By: Niki Borghei

High-performance processors, like GPUs (graphics processing units), CPUs (central processing units), and ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), are the backbone of modern data centers. These powerful processors drive key technologies such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, and autonomous vehicles. As demand for computational power grows, so does the amount of energy these processors consume. Some high-performance processors now consume as much as 1000 watts of power—about 10 times more than a decade ago.

This dramatic increase in power usage has led to a shift in how power is distributed within data centers. The traditional 12-volt power systems are being replaced by 48-volt systems. This change helps reduce power loss during distribution, making the system more efficient. However, it also brings new challenges. The higher voltage requires more advanced voltage regulation modules (VRMs) to convert the power efficiently, and these modules need to be more compact while handling increased power.

With the rising demand for more power in smaller spaces, there is also a growing need for better power conversion efficiency. More efficient systems reduce the overall electricity consumption of data centers, which is especially important given that global data centers consume as much electricity as entire countries—like the United Kingdom. Improving efficiency could save significant amounts of energy, leading to both environmental and economic benefits.

To address these challenges, UC Berkeley professor Robert Pilawa-Podgurski is working on innovative solutions. One promising approach is the development of a hybrid switched-capacitor (SC) VRM. This new design could reduce power conversion losses by 50% and shrink the size of power conversion systems by 75%. By improving the efficiency of power conversion and reducing the size of these systems, the new technology could help lower energy consumption across data centers globally, which would not only have a positive environmental impact but also create a significant market opportunity for more efficient data center technologies.