AIM Student Completes Research Fellowship at UK Parliament
AIM PhD student Alexander Williams recently completed a 3-month research fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) following a successful application to the UKRI Policy Internship Scheme.
POST is an impartial research and knowledge exchange service based in the UK Parliament. They work to ensure cutting-edge research evidence and expertise is available to members of both houses of parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords), covering emerging and complex science and social science topics.
During the fellowship, Alex worked closely with POST’s Physical Sciences and Digital Lead, Simon Brawley, to research and write a POSTnote—an impartial, accurate, and peer-reviewed briefing tailored for UK parliamentarians—on data centres and their sustainability.
Data centres are crucial infrastructure that underpin many aspects of modern life, including artificial intelligence. The POSTnote, titled What are data centres and how sustainable are they?, discusses what data centres are, their presence in the UK, and their impact on different aspects of sustainability. This briefing was produced in consultation with experts and stakeholders from academia, industry, government, and beyond, including interviews with Google, techUK and academics from University of Oxford, Loughborough University, and University of Manchester.
The POSTnote can be read in full here.
Well done Alex!