Taipei Tech and Sunbird Software signed a partnership agreement on October 3. Wang Sea-Fue, President of Taipei Tech, and Hsu Ching-I, Executive President of Sunbird Software, signed the agreement in the ceremony. With this agreement, Sunbird will invest TWD$20 million in building the Sunbird DCIM Research Center at Taipei Tech in the next five years, establishing a base for DCIM (data center infrastructure management) research and training.

Data centers house computer servers and telecommunication equipments and are typically the most energy-consuming aspect in the information and communication technology industry. According to estimates, data centers consume about 2% of world’s electricity usage, which is equivalent of 1.5 times of Taiwan’s total electricity output in 2018. According to Sunbird, engineers typically keep the temperature of data centers at 18°C to ensure performance stability. DCIM software can finely adjust temperature based on data gathered from a data center and allows data centers to operate at an average of 25°C, effectively saving companies large energy bill.

Hsu of Sunbird pointed out that DCIM software is sophisticated and requires engineers with strong and solid training. Drawing on the current successful partnership with Taipei Tech, Sunbird is now expanding the partnership to establish the Sunbird DCIM Research Center.

Wang of Taipei Tech said that smart energy technologies is one of the focused research areas of Taipei Tech, and it fits perfectly with what Sunbird is doing. Sunbird DCIM Research Center will be the first industry partnership project of the new Taipei Tech Research Institute. Taipei Tech will work closely with Sunbird to provide research opportunities for faculty members and internship and learning opportunities for students.

Based on the agreement, Taipei Tech and Sunbird will engage in research projects and a student internship and advising project called the Integrated Capstone and Internship Project (ICIP). Through ICIP, Sunbird will provide internship opportunities, and engineers from Sunbird will also co-advise Taipei Tech computer science students in their senior projects. Fourteen students have signed up for ICIP this year.

According to a recent survey by IT research and advisory firm Gartner, DCIM is a promising and fast-growing market, and Sunbird is rated the best among the top four DCIM companies in the world. Sunbird is originally the DCIM software division of Raritan, a global manufacturer of data center components, and became an independent company dedicated to DCIM in 2015. Customers of Sunbird include Comcast, Merck, Disney, and Morgan Stanley.