Economic impact of $800M from Hard Drive R&D Using Neutrons

A study by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) [1] recently calculated the economic impact of knowledge arising from research and development (R&D) using neutron beams and used to develop computer hard drives.

Research on magnetic materials using neutron beams in the U.S. and Canada was seminal in understanding the basic principles on which hard drives operate, including the phenomenon of giant magnetoresistance (GMR). This research took place in the early 1990s, while companies such as IBM and Seagate were in the initial stages of developing hard drives based on GMR. Informed by this scientific knowledge, the technology advanced significantly, dramatically reducing the cost of computer memory. The RTI study calculated the benefit to U.S. consumers from lower computer memory costs from 1998 through 2005 at a present value of $114 billion, excluding other benefits from the widespread use of these computers in the economy.

Canada’s contributions to the scientific efforts to understand GMR included polarized neutron reflectometry measurements at the NRU reactor at Chalk River Laboratories to characterize the GMR effect in various materials. Additionally, at least one student who earned his PhD conducting such measurements went to work for Seagate upon graduation, bringing his knowledge and experience while the company was still developing its first commercial GMR hard drive.

Neutron beams are uniquely suited to such research, and without the measurements conducted at North American neutron sources, the road to commercial GMR hard drives would have been much longer. The RTI study calculated the portion of the $114 billion impact attributable to research relying on neutron facilities, assuming the research accelerated commercialization by only two years. The results place the impact of the U.S. neutron facilities at $10 billion (source: RTI). More than half of the present value of all U.S. investments in its three main neutron facilities over 70 years ($18B over 1960 to 2030) was regained from this one research area over just 7 years (1998 to 2005).

Similarly, Canada is receiving back from hard drive research all of its direct investments in neutron beam laboratories. The economic impact from lower cost hard drives can be estimated at $9 billion by scaling down for Canada’s economy, of which $800 million can be attributed to research using neutrons. By comparison, the present value of Canada’s investments in neutron beam laboratories over 70 years is approximately $750 million. This cost estimate includes the direct cost of the neutron beam laboratory and the attributed portion of the operating cost of the neutron sources. These neutron sources, Canada’s NRU reactor and its predecessor, the NRX reactor, were multipurpose facilities primarily justified by their uses for isotope production and nuclear power development.