AI Insights
Why we need ‘revolutionary’ cooling tech
Technology Reporter
Getty ImagesSneha Sachar, who spent half her life in Delhi and now lives in California, is used to heat. But her hometown feels much hotter now than when she was growing up.
Even commuting by car is so uncomfortable in certain months, says Ms Sachar, who works for the Clean Cooling Collaborative, a philanthropic initiative focused on improved cooling.
Rising temperatures are even worse for outdoor workers. “This is really impacting the ability of people to continue to earn their livelihoods,” Ms Sachar says.
She says that there are a number of low-tech ways to keep buildings cool, such as designing for air flow.
For outdoor workers, even a 20-minute break from the heat and humidity, such as in well-designed cooling stations, can make a difference.
But beyond this, active cooling will become increasingly critical as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change.
Morgan Stanley is predicting that the annual growth rate of the cooling market, already worth $235bn (£180bn) a year, could more than double by 2030.
Getty ImagesYet existing cooling devices have serious drawbacks. One issue the refrigerant – the fluid that transitions back and forth from liquid to gas, in a process that transfers heat.
It’s common for them to leak from standard systems, harming both efficiency and potentially health.
The refrigerants typically used in cooling today are hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of synthetic gases with high global warming potential. HFCs are much more potent than carbon dioxide.
So one option is to replace the refrigerants with more climate-friendly versions. But the candidates with the lower global warming potential, also have problems.
For instance, propane is highly flammable. Ammonia is toxic. Carbon dioxide works at high pressures, requiring specialised equipment.
But as many places phase down HFCs, alternative refrigerants will remain important.
Ms Sachar says that we still need refrigerants because for home cooling, “A/Cs as we know them today will continue to be the solution, at least for the next decade or so”.
Tati van Thiel PhotographyIn the longer term, some scientists are looking toward cooling devices that don’t need liquid refrigerants at all.
Lindsay Rasmussen, who manages building and land-use projects at the energy non-profit RMI, calls these “revolutionary technologies”.
A major set of revolutionary cooling tech is solid-state cooling. This uses solid materials and some sort of additional force to induce temperature changes. That extra force could be pressure, voltage, magnets or mechanical stress.
Ms Rasmussen says that solid-state devices can go further than incremental improvements because “not only do they eliminate those super-polluting refrigerants, but they can also offer improved efficiency to the systems”.
RMI has identified between 10 and 20 start-ups working on early versions of solid-state cooling devices.
One of those startups is the German company Magnotherm, which uses magnets. Certain materials change temperature when exposed to magnetic fields.
“With our technology, it’s inherently safe because it’s not toxic, it’s a metal, and we operate at very low pressures,” according to Timur Sirman, the CEO and cofounder of Magnotherm.
The idea of magnetocaloric cooling has been around for years, but commercialising it is relatively new. Magnotherm has built about 40 beverage coolers, and about five refrigerators, in what is so far a manual and in-house process.
The permanent magnets are the most expensive part of the technology, Mr Sirman reports. “But it never breaks, so we can always reuse this quite cost-intensive component.”
The company is seeking out alternative sources of magnetic fields, as well as optimising materials, as they aim to dramatically increase the cooling capacity of their devices.
Mr Sirman believes that if you account for the efficiency and health issues of refrigerants, like leakages, Magnotherm products can compete on price. “We are not targeting customers who are only looking at initial cost.”
He acknowledges that for now the company’s beverage coolers are quite pricey. Their customers tend to be early adopters of new technologies.
PhononicAnother technology under development is thermoelectric cooling.
This involves moving heat between two sides of a device. With the application of electrical energy, heat is transferred in the direction of the current.
A notable thermoelectric start-up is Phononic, which is based in the US and has an additional manufacturing facility in Thailand.
Millions of Phononic cooling devices are now in use, including in data centres, supermarkets and other buildings.
Their cooling devices are built in a similar way to computer chips, using semiconducting materials to transfer the heat.
“Our chips are really thin, really small, but they get really cold. They consume a small amount of electricity in generating that coldness, but they pack one hell of a punch,” says Tony Atti, the CEO of Phononic.
He says that, to work at their best, traditional fridges need to be run all the time.
But thermoelectric devices can be easily switched on off. This helps to reduce the costs, energy use and space requirements.
“We like to present the coolness on demand where you need it,” says Mr Atti.
Another advantage is that thermoelectric cooling can operate silently. “That’s because there’s zero moving parts,” Ms Rasmussen explains. “The heat is occurring because of the reaction in the material level.”
In contrast, standard vapour compression systems contain pumps, condensers and expanders for refrigerant, which all generate much of the noise.
A different type of solid-state cooling is elastocaloric cooling. This achieves temperature changes through mechanical stress to elastocaloric materials, which can cool down or heat up with the application of stress.
Researchers in four European countries are collaborating on SMACool, an elastocaloric air conditioner that uses metal tubes made from specific metallic alloys.
At the moment, elastocaloric prototypes have much lower cooling capacity than commercial air conditioning. And the maximum possible efficiency of SMACool is still lower than that of conventional air conditioning, although the aim is to beat the energy efficiency of A/C.
However, progress is continuing. A team led by Hong Kong researchers recently created an A/C alternative that achieved a cooling power of 1,284W—the first time an elastocaloric device surpassed the 1,000W mark. One innovation was using graphene nanofluid rather than distilled water to transfer the heat.
Overall, Ms Rasmussen says, solid-state devices are generally not yet as powerful as conventional vapour-compression air conditioning. But she expects performance improvements over time.
She also expects improvements in affordability. So far solid-state cooling has mainly been deployed in wealthy countries.
A key question, Ms Rasmussen says, is “Can these technologies scale up to where they could be affordable for those who need it the most and where the greatest demand for cooling is coming from?”
Equipped with a starter robot hardware kit and cutting-edge lessons in artificial intelligence, students in CS 123: A Hands-On Introduction to Building AI-Enabled Robots are mastering the full spectrum of robotics – from motor control to machine learning. Now in its third year, the course has students build and enhance an adorable quadruped robot, Pupper, programming it to walk, navigate, respond to human commands, and perform a specialized task that they showcase in their final presentations.
The course, which evolved from an independent study project led by Stanford’s robotics club, is now taught by Karen Liu, professor of computer science in the School of Engineering, in addition to Jie Tan from Google DeepMind and Stuart Bowers from Apple and Hands-On Robotics. Throughout the 10-week course, students delve into core robotics concepts, such as movement and motor control, while connecting them to advanced AI topics.
“We believe that the best way to help and inspire students to become robotics experts is to have them build a robot from scratch,” Liu said. “That’s why we use this specific quadruped design. It’s the perfect introductory platform for beginners to dive into robotics, yet powerful enough to support the development of cutting-edge AI algorithms.”
What makes the course especially approachable is its low barrier to entry – students need only basic programming skills to get started. From there, the students build up the knowledge and confidence to tackle complex robotics and AI challenges.
Robot creation goes mainstream
Pupper evolved from Doggo, built by the Stanford Student Robotics club to offer people a way to create and design a four-legged robot on a budget. When the team saw the cute quadruped’s potential to make robotics both approachable and fun, they pitched the idea to Bowers, hoping to turn their passion project into a hands-on course for future roboticists.
“We wanted students who were still early enough in their education to explore and experience what we felt like the future of AI robotics was going to be,” Bowers said.
This current version of Pupper is more powerful and refined than its predecessors. It’s also irresistibly adorable and easier than ever for students to build and interact with.
“We’ve come a long way in making the hardware better and more capable,” said Ankush Kundan Dhawan, one of the first students to take the Pupper course in the fall of 2021 before becoming its head teaching assistant. “What really stuck with me was the passion that instructors had to help students get hands-on with real robots. That kind of dedication is very powerful.”
Code come to life
Building a Pupper from a starter hardware kit blends different types of engineering, including electrical work, hardware construction, coding, and machine learning. Some students even produced custom parts for their final Pupper projects. The course pairs weekly lectures with hands-on labs. Lab titles like Wiggle Your Big Toe and Do What I Say keep things playful while building real skills.
CS 123 students ready to show off their Pupper’s tricks. | Harry Gregory
Over the initial five weeks, students are taught the basics of robotics, including how motors work and how robots can move. In the next phase of the course, students add a layer of sophistication with AI. Using neural networks to improve how the robot walks, sees, and responds to the environment, they get a glimpse of state-of-the-art robotics in action. Many students also use AI in other ways for their final projects.
“We want them to actually train a neural network and control it,” Bowers said. “We want to see this code come to life.”
By the end of the quarter this spring, students were ready for their capstone project, called the “Dog and Pony Show,” where guests from NVIDIA and Google were present. Six teams had Pupper perform creative tasks – including navigating a maze and fighting a (pretend) fire with a water pick – surrounded by the best minds in the industry.
“At this point, students know all the essential foundations – locomotion, computer vision, language – and they can start combining them and developing state-of-the-art physical intelligence on Pupper,” Liu said.
“This course gives them an overview of all the key pieces,” said Tan. “By the end of the quarter, the Pupper that each student team builds and programs from scratch mirrors the technology used by cutting-edge research labs and industry teams today.”
All ready for the robotics boom
The instructors believe the field of AI robotics is still gaining momentum, and they’ve made sure the course stays current by integrating new lessons and technology advances nearly every quarter.
This Pupper was mounted with a small water jet to put out a pretend fire. | Harry Gregory
Students have responded to the course with resounding enthusiasm and the instructors expect interest in robotics – at Stanford and in general – will continue to grow. They hope to be able to expand the course, and that the community they’ve fostered through CS 123 can contribute to this engaging and important discipline.
“The hope is that many CS 123 students will be inspired to become future innovators and leaders in this exciting, ever-changing field,” said Tan.
“We strongly believe that now is the time to make the integration of AI and robotics accessible to more students,” Bowers said. “And that effort starts here at Stanford and we hope to see it grow beyond campus, too.”
Chief financial officers are recognizing the need to upskill their workforce to ensure their teams can effectively harness artificial intelligence (AI).
The Velvet Sundown, a four-person band, or so it seems, has garnered a lot of attention on Spotify. It started posting music on the platform in early June and has since released two full albums with a few more singles and another album coming soon. Naturally, listeners started to accuse the band of being an AI-generated project, which as it now turns out, is true.
The band or music project called The Velvet Sundown has over a million monthly listeners on Spotify. That’s an impressive debut considering their first album called “Floating on Echoes” hit the music streaming platform on June 4. Then, on June 19, their second album called “Dust and Silence” was added to the library. Next week, July 14, will mark the release of the third album called “Paper Sun Rebellion.” Since their debut, listeners have accused the band of being an AI-generated project and now, the owners of the project have updated the Spotify bio and called it a “synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence.”
It goes on to state that this project challenges the boundaries of “authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI.” The owners claim that the characters, stories, music, voices, and lyrics are “original creations generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools,” but it is unclear to what extent AI was involved in the development process.
The band art shows four individuals suggesting they are owners of the project, but the images are likely AI-generated as well. Interestingly, Andrew Frelon (pseudonym) claimed to be the owner of the AI band initially, but then confirmed that was untrue and that he pretended to run their Twitter because he wanted to insert an “extra layer of weird into this story,” of this AI band.
As it stands now, The Velvet Sundown’s music is available on Spotify with the new album releasing next week. Now, whether this unveiling causes a spike or a decline in monthly listeners, remains to be seen.
I have always been passionate about gaming and technology, which drove me towards pursuing a career in the tech writing industry. I have spent over 7 years in the tech space and about a decade in content writing. I hope to continue to use this passion and generate informative, entertaining, and accurate content for readers.
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