IBM and UBD extend hand to make Homes Greener

To innovate new ways to design smarter energy solutions for homes, communities and grids in Brunei, IBM  has announced signing a new research agreement with Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD). With this collaboration, IBM will use analytics to better understand energy usage and supply in buildings to enable efficient allocation of resources and distribution of power.

As per the alliance, IBM and UBD aim to explore the factors affecting energy consumption patterns. In addition, the research will focus on the load flow in Brunei’s grid and study phenomena like “power swing” that leads to blackouts.

This research will play a vital role in capacity and skills development of Bruneians, to support Brunei Darussalam's "Vision 2035" of a dynamic and knowledge-driven natural resources-based economy.

Ramesh Gopinath, Director, IBM Research – India, said,  Our collaboration with UBD has already witnessed significant progress in identifying some of Brunei’s natural resource modelling challenges, and we expect the relationship to continue to develop new insights into how Brunei can use energy more efficiently. We are glad to partner with UBD in this new research engagement. By combining education and innovation, UBD can help strengthen the local infrastructure, maintain a sustainable economy and improve quality of life.

Effective energy policies and planning are vital. This includes ensuring that the financial, technical capability, infrastructure and skills are made available, and all this takes time to establish. Research and development needs to be part and parcel of this growth potential, said YB Pehin Dato Hj Mohd Yasmin Hj Umar, Minister of Energy, Brunei.

The UBD IBM Centre has been instituted to serve as a catalyst to help UBD to be amongst the Top 50 ranked universities in Asia by 2015. To support this research, a Blue Gene/P supercomputer has been installed in UBD for usage by UBD IBM Centre researchers.