"PowerNap" — an example of emerging technology.

"For the typical industrial data center, the average utilization is 20 to 30 percent. The computers are spending about four-fifths of their time doing nothing," Wenisch said in a statement. "And the way we build these computers today, they're still using 60 percent of peak power even when they're doing nothing."

To address the issue, Wenisch and his partners in the study are proposing PowerNap, a system to take systems offline extremely quickly, and wake them up even more quickly, as a way of conserving energy at a very high level. And while a system like PowerNap would require a new type of operating system to manage, the more challenging component is developing a new power supply that can meet these needs.