As computing devices evolve with successive technology generations, many machines target either the mobile or high-performance computing/datacenter environments. In both of these form factors, energy consumption often represents the limiting factor on hardware and software efficiency. On mobile devices, limitations in battery technology may reduce possible hardware capability due to a tight energy budget. On the other hand, large machines such as datacenters and supercomputers have budgets directly related to energy consumption and small improvements in energy efficiency can significantly reduce operating costs. Such challenges have influenced research upon the impact of applications, operating and runtime systems upon energy consumption. Until recently, little consideration was given to the potential energy efficiency of algorithms themselves.

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