The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), a collaborative community focused on redesigning hardware technology to efficiently support the growing demands on compute infrastructure, announces today that Virginia Tech is the winner of the 2020 Future Technologies Symposium. The Symposium is an OCP initiative that brings the startup, academic, analyst and investor communities together to collaboratively solve future industry problems and accelerate productization through partnerships and open source R&D. The full-day virtual event will be held on May 15 in association with the 2020 OCP Virtual Summit taking place May 12-15.

Members of Virginia Tech's Center for Power Electronics Systems will be recognized with a $10,000 award during the Symposium for their submission entitled "3kW Power Supply Design with Easy Manufacturability for 48 V Bus Power Architecture." The paper discusses methods for data centers to design the DC-DC unit of the 3kW power supply for the 48V architecture with easier manufacturability and lower cost, as well as a demonstrated prototype for 400V/48V 3kW 1MHz.
 
"It's indeed a pleasure to be part of the OCP Future Technologies Symposium," states  Fred C. Lee, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) at Virginia Tech. "Our research team at Virginia Tech - CPES has been working on advancing power electronics technologies for decades. The Symposium is a great opportunity for us to share timely our latest research related to the next generation of Data Center power delivery architecture and power conversion technologies to the leading industry organizations. Being recognized as the top paper award for our paper entitled 3kW Power Supply Design with Easy Manufacturability for 48 V Bus Power Architecture means a great deal to our students and motivates them to continue working on further improvement." 

"We received an incredible response to this year's Future Technologies Symposium with innovative and creative submissions from up-and-coming startups, highly-regarded academic organizations and some of the top established companies in the industry," comments Rocky Bullock, CEO for the Open Compute Project Foundation. "We were particularly impressed with the work that Virginia Tech submitted this year on the topic of 48 V Bus Power Architecture and look forward to their team presenting their proposed methods during the Symposium."

"We continue to be impressed with the level of engagement and the quality of topics coming from Academia and Startup communities to the Future Technologies Symposium," adds Allan Smith, Chair, OCP Future Technologies Symposium and Facebook Area 404 Lab Manager. "This year's winner (Va Tech) has challenged the industry to rethink its power architectures going forward."

In its second year, The 2020 Future Technologies Symposium is part of the 4-day 2020 OCP Virtual Summit. This year's Summit will be an interactive virtual experience that can be accessed from anywhere in the world and incorporates all the key components of OCP's annual Global Summit, including keynote sessions, executive tracks, an Expo Hall with Expo Hall talks, Engineering Workshops and the OCP Experience Center. Click here to register for the OCP Virtual Summit on May 12-15, 2020. Registration is free for all attendees and the full schedule can be found here.