The Department of Energy awarded UC Santa Barbara $4.4 million for a program that reduces energy consumption in data centers by making communications technology faster and more efficient.

U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, announced the award, part of the department’s Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy program.

UCSB’s Intelligent Reduction of Energy through Photonic Integration for Datacenters program is working to integrate photonic interfaces with microchips, which would make them flatter, use less energy and increase bandwidth.

“The Central Coast has led the way in developing cutting edge technologies and this ARPA-E funding will help solidify its place in the growing technology industry,” Carbajal said in a news release. “This federal support boosts these promising technologies coming out of UCSB’s INTREPID program and is crucial to getting these innovations out of the lab and into the marketplace where they will help lower costs and improve efficiency.”

The funds had been withheld by the department, but were released after a group of representatives, including Carbajal, wrote to the Energy Secretary to request their release to awardees. UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and UCLA also received funding for projects involving photonics and data processing.

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