Washington: Technology giant IBM, together with the general public, is helping academic researchers make advances in energy technologies.
IBM's most recent Corporate Responsibility Report, now available, details not only the company's own environmental stewardship, but discusses projects such as The Clean Energy Project at Harvard University, which is seeking novel, organic molecules that can underpin cheaper and more efficient solar cells.
IBM's World Community Grid, which provides scientists with free computing power harvested from the idle PCs of volunteers, has enabled Harvard to discover a new compound for solar cells that might one day be painted inexpensively and easily on windows and roofs.
The Harvard team is using World Community Grid to automate and accelerate the screening of 3.5 million molecules - chemistry's biggest set of quantum calculations ever. In a news release, IBM said it "believes that collaboration with academia, government, private enterprise and the general public is the key to better environmental research - and a Smarter Planet."