will come from more renewable sources, and wind turbines and solar panels will distribute power generation—customers will supply electricity as well as consuming it. It’s a busi-

ness with a bright future, and Google wants in. Google’s interest in clean energy is partly

driven by its cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both committed environmentalists,

but there’s also a business angle. Google’s giant data centers consume as much as 300 mega-

watts of power—enough to power a city the size of Baltimore.

 

Ironically, the brand that best represents the new economy is teaming with the brand that best characterizes the old. Together, the companies are working on the hardware and software to overhaul the United States’ aging power system.

“We make the gadgets—smart electric meters, things like that,” said GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt at Google’s Zeitgeist conference, an annual high-power confab. “People like Google can make the software, which makes the system. That’s the key to renewable energy.”

Immelt, who has long been overshadowed by his predecessor, GE’s legendary CEO Jack Welch, has been pushing GE to go green for several years and is just now starting to see his vision pay off. He’s transforming GE from the maker of your grandma’s fridge into an eco-friendly leader of the green-tech revolution.

In the minds of most people, Silicon Valley is where cutting-edge technology is born. But as GE’s Smart Grid Lab shows, there’s plenty of action on the East Coast. From New York’s thriving Silicon Alley to Microsoft’s brand-new social media lab outside of Boston, the Eastern Seaboard and the technology leaders based here are key players in the future of technology.

INVENTING ELEANOR

GE is one of several East Coast companies and research centers leading the way in clean and green tech. Because of the economic meltdown, tech funding is coming less from private capital and more from the federal government. The Obama administration’s stimulus plan is

pumping $40 billion into clean tech (see sidebar), hoping that next-generation energy will become a cornerstone of America’s economy, drive innovation, provide green jobs and end America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Some of the money will go to Silicon Valley, but it’s not just California that will benefit. Thanks to its traditional ties to politics and the media, East Coast technologists are finding themselves at the forefront of two of the hottest trends in tech—green tech and social media.

“The Northeast is definitely developing into a clean-tech hub,” says Wilson Rickerson, a Boston-based consultant who specializes in renewable-energy technology and policy.

Take the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has long been the premier training ground for America’s engineers. Founded in 1861 and based in