Approximate Computing for Power and Energy Optimisation

In the race towards building smarter, more powerful and more connected machines, scientists are also searching for ways to make sure they are energy efficient. If no action is taken, computers will soon need more electricity than the world energy resources can generate. More alarmingly, the Internet of Things will connect up to 50 billion devices to the cloud through wireless networks. The EU-funded APROPOS project is exploring ways to decrease energy consumption and optimise energy-accuracy trade-offs. To that end, it is developing approximate computing, in which applications using data may be satisfied with an ‘acceptable’ level of accuracy, and it will train early-stage researchers in energy-accuracy trade-offs on circuit, architecture, software and system-level solutions. According to the project, energy efficiency can thus be improved by a factor of up to 50 times.