Communications of the ACM
Digital Agenda: EU-Funded Research to Make the 'Cloud' Greener
A 3D microchip could drastically cut the electricity and the installation costs of servers in cloud computing data centers.
Credit: European Commission
The Eurocloud project aims to develop a three-dimensional (3D) microchip that can drastically cut the electricity and the installation costs of servers in cloud computing data centers.
The Eurocloud project has adapted low-power microprocessor technologies, which are normally used in mobile phones, to work on a much larger scale. Initial testing shows that the new technology could reduce power needs by as much as 90 percent compared to conventional servers. The researchers say the results could make data center investment affordable to more companies, while saving the cloud computing customers of data centers billions of dollars. Eurocloud is targeting the development of server chips that cost 10 times less to buy and consume 10 times less energy when they operate compared to current cutting-edge servers.
The project is focusing on virtual prototype specialization of 3D servers, characterization of cloud applications, scalable 3D architecture specifications, on-chip hierarchies, and reliability, availability, and fault tolerance. "Today's power-hungry cloud data centers are not sustainable in the long run," says the European Commission's Neelie Kroes. "The Eurocloud chip addresses the core of this energy consumption problem."
From EUROPA
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