The Low Carbon Patent Pledge announced last week that JPMorgan Chase is helping combat climate change by making key patents freely available to anyone using low carbon technologies.
This brings the total number of companies who have joined the Pledge to 6. The Pledge was launched on Earth Day 2021 by Hewlett Patent Enterprise, Microsoft and Facebook with the mission of promoting low carbon technologies and fostering collaborative innovation. The other two companies are Majid Al Futtaim and enterprise software company Micro Focus.
The bank is making several key patents related to how it efficiently cools and ventilates its massive data centers available to anyone using low carbon technologies as part of a joint pledge. The official announcement and subsequent media coverage did not name the patents or provide their numbers, however, a list of the 435 patents that are part of the pledge can be found here. Any patent owner can contribute.
Paris Climate Accord
JP Morgan’s head of intellectual property Daryl Wooldridge told Reuters the company was making the patents available to back up the bank’s commitment to the international Paris climate accord.
“Making critical technology available to innovators who are developing solutions that address climate change is critical to that effort,” said Wooldridge.
Launched in April this year, companies have shared more than 435 patents as part of the Low Carbon Patent Pledge, which is administered by the American University College of Law in Washington. Cost, space and energy demand are a common problem among data centers and business that serve them.
JPMorgan does not disclose information about its data centers. But it was reported in 2012, and reported last week in CIO.com, and Economic Times publication, that the bank spent $500 million to build just one center. The bank’s annual technology budget regularly runs around $12 billion.
Cybercurrencies and Carbon Footprint
Blockchain-based cybercurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which financial institutions are increasingly eager to trade, are server-dependent and require enormous amounts of power to maintain. Server power demand is a growing obstacle to broader acceptance of alternative currencies.
The most reputable such estimate, according to Quartz, comes from the University of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. It says the global bitcoin network currently consumes about 80 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, roughly equal to the annual output of 23 coal-fired power plants, or close to what is consumed by the nation of Finland.
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