Robert Nachtrieb

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Robert Nachtrieb

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Robert Nachtrieb is a Senior Lecturer in System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

He co-teaches the System Dynamics II Elective for EMBAs and Sloan Fellows.

Nachtrieb is the lead scientist at Lutron Electronics, the worldwide leader in the area of lighting controls.  In his decade-long tenure at Lutron, Nachtrieb has played a leading role in the development of a wide variety of global standards including LED dimming and fluorescent dimming, controlgear inrush, and controls compatibility.  Nachtrieb is the chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board of the US-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) Consortium for Building Energy Efficiency.  He also serves as the chairman of the Lighting Controls section of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) and as the U.S. representative at the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) in the Controlgear Subcommittee.

Nachtrieb is a 2013 recipient of the IEC 1906 Award.  An active contributor to premier industry conferences, he has made significant contributions to peer-reviewed journals in the field of lighting and has been awarded several U.S. patents.  He sits on the advisory board of San-Francisco-based BrightBytes, an innovator in the field of educational technology. 

Nachtrieb holds a BS in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois, an ScD in applied plasma physics from MIT, and an MBA from MIT as part of the first EMBA cohort. 

Media Highlights

Press Věda Živě

3% per year seems innocent. Study shows how quickly exponential growth of AI will turn millennia of energy reserves into decades

A preprint study by senior lecturer Robert Nachtrieb and co-author claims that electricity consumption for AI has grown at a rate of 12.7% per year since 2015, and has accelerated to 15% in the last five years. In 2024, AI accounted for just 1.5% of global electricity consumption. If the 15% curve is maintained, it would reach parity with the rest of the world's consumption combined around 2050.

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