Dutch National Science Agenda (NWA) program
NL-ECO is inspired by the need for a radical improvement in the energy efficiency of information and communication technology (ICT). This energy consumption is problematically high and is growing to unsustainable levels. The NL-ECO program, part of the Dutch National Science Agenda (NWA), aims to develop new concepts and associated materials for this purpose. In NL-ECO, 33 academic, industrial, and societal organisations join forces on one of the major social challenges; how can the rapidly increasing consumption of energy in ICT be curbed?
In an interdisciplinary approach, the NL-ECO program explores frontiers in energy-efficient computing technologies which go beyond existing paradigms. We focus, among other things, on the development and application of new chip technologies that combine electrical, optical and magnetic effects, on new ways of data processing inspired by the functioning of the brain, and on materials structured in such a way that they can perform calculations automatically.