{"id":237841,"date":"2026-05-27T18:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/quantum-computing-may-need-far-more-than-power-as-future-data-centers-scale-up"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:04:13","slug":"quantum-computing-may-need-far-more-than-power-as-future-data-centers-scale-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/quantum-computing-may-need-far-more-than-power-as-future-data-centers-scale-up","title":{"rendered":"Quantum computing may need far more than power as future data centers scale up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/quantum-computing-may-need-far-more-than-power-as-future-data-centers-scale-up.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As quantum computing moves closer to large-scale deployment, new research is examining its future energy, water, and material demands.<\/p>\n<p>David McCollum, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory distinguished scientist, is leading the project. McCollum is also a joint faculty professor in the Center for Energy, Transportation, and Environmental Policy (CETEP) at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The work aims to inform the rollout of quantum infrastructure over the coming decades. It examines technologies evolving from experimental environments to commercial-scale use. Quantum computing is expected to unlock advances in drug discovery, material science, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuantum computing presents extraordinary opportunities, from accelerating scientific discovery to solving complex optimization problems,\u201d McCollum said. \u201cAt the same time, it introduces new questions about the energy, water, and materials required to operate these systems at scale. Our research aims to get ahead of those questions before resource and supply chain constraints start to bite.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As quantum computing moves closer to large-scale deployment, new research is examining its future energy, water, and material demands. David McCollum, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory distinguished scientist, is leading the project. McCollum is also a joint faculty professor in the Center for Energy, Transportation, and Environmental Policy (CETEP) at the Howard H. Baker Jr. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,31,1617,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybercrime-malcode","category-policy","category-quantum-physics","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}