Moore is More: Why Software-Defined Battery Will Be the Only Battery Solution the World Needs
Who doesn’t want to do more with less? In the technology world, that’s called Moore’s law.
Dr. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, stipulated that one can pack twice the number of transistors into a dense integrated circuit every two years. The phenomenon allows product manufacturers to cram more computing power into a smaller device to do more things at a lower cost.
That’s why you can now buy a $5 light bulb containing 100 million transistors. If that sounds crazy, look at your smartphone. The iPhone 14 Pro runs a processor with 15.8 billion transistors. Then, its flash storage has over a trillion transistors. If your brain is hurting to grasp the extent of the number, you’re not alone.
The accelerating pace of technological innovation means we can’t afford to “wait and see” before we act. We’re no longer in Dr. Moore’s time (1965,) where it took two decades for the personal computer revolution to take hold and then another two for smartphones to become an everyday object.
We must identify parallel scenarios and predict how market demand and technological capabilities converge to shape the next big thing. What does that mean for battery technology and electrification?
To predict where we’re heading with battery solutions, let’s look at how software-defined radio and TV fared circa 2005.
Analog TV’s days were numbered. You could fit 7 digital channels (including one in HD) into an analog one. The cost of making a digital TV had just become within reach of consumer electronics companies. Meanwhile, mobile carriers were salivating over vast swaths of radio spectrums that TV stations used to transmit information to rabbit ear antennas.
Since we had only so many “bands” available in the air to carry radio signals, we needed technologies to help us use the resource more effectively — doing more with less.
Fast forward to today’s digital (aka software-defined) TVs. Their “brains” are encapsulated in a small epoxy-covered blob that costs about a dollar to manufacture, despite having hundreds of millions of transistors.
The business case became staggering for TV stations to go digital. Simply put, they can put 7 digital channels into the space of an analog one — which means they can generate more revenue with the same amount of resources (i.e., spectrum.)
Lithium in batteries today is similar to radio spectrums in 2005. Lithium is a finite and valuable resource in high demand. It drives the future of electrification, yet it could become the bottleneck of the energy supply chain.
Software embedded in batteries allows operators to optimize power consumption and distribution. We can use widely available and low-cost computer chips and software to optimize the value we derive from a scarce resource.
Based on Moore’s law and the accelerating pace of innovation, it won’t take 10 years for “digital battery” to dominate the market. The demand for software-defined batteries is knocking at the door, and the Tanktwo Battery Operating System (TBOS) has the technology to turn the concept into reality.
Moore’s law made digital TV, HD radio, smartphone, the internet, and electric cars possible. It’ll make software-defined batteries the only battery solution in town in no time — just like nobody missed 200-pound flickery tube TVs that displayed a grainy picture.
The business case for software-defined batteries is like the one behind the rise of digital TV: More features, more agility, lower power bills, and more profits.
Additionally, electrification enables the use of clean energy sources, and the data-driven approach means we can optimize resource usage — in this case, lithium, which carries social and environmental impacts in its production process.
TBOS makes the use of software-defined batteries possible, allowing product builders and equipment operators to do well by doing good.
