IT

Startup SeaMicro first packed lots of low-end Atom processors into servers to save power and space. Now Intel's beefy Xeon server chips are also getting the low-power treatment.

SeaMicro today announced its SM 10000-XE server, which it claims is the most energy-efficient Xeon server ever built. It consumes one half the power of a server with comparable computing muscle, takes one third of the space, and increases the available bandwidth twelve times, the company said.

The company is one of few companies that have taken a radical approach to server design by using arrays of less powerful processors, called &… Read more

Armed with little more than data sets, APIs, pizza, and beer, a group of software developers this weekend set out to demonstrate the power of information technology to help the environment.

The Cleanweb Hackathon attracted about 100 developers in New York City as well as a panel of judges that included New York City's chief digital officer and the U.S. chief technology officer. The first hackathon took place last September in San Francisco.

Yesterday afternoon, 15 teams, including one from Columbia University, showed off their "hacks" and received awards. The Web and mobile applications touched on … Read more

Thanks in no small part to Moore's Law, engineers and entrepreneurs now have incredibly powerful tools at their hands, creating a fertile environment for invention.

In the year ahead, we're guaranteed more powerful supercomputers and smartphones from the tech industry's basic building block--the microchip. But in a world where the amount of information doubles every year, computers' ability to make sense of it has never been more vital, touching every field of scientific research from robotics to satellite imagery.

Meanwhile, advances in very different fields--materials science and biotech--are paving the way for better batteries, biofuels, and cleaner … Read more

After hammering Facebook to shift away from coal, Greenpeace can now claim an ally in the social network.

The two today announced a collaboration to promote renewable energy on the grid and improve energy efficiency in data centers.

In a joint statement (PDF), Facebook agreed to create a data center policy that "states a preference for access to clean and renewable energy supply," continue research on data center efficiency, and urge utilities to increase the amount of clean energy used for Facebook's operations.

Greenpeace will actively support the Facebook-founded Open Compute Project to share energy-efficient data center … Read more

Facebook's state-of-the-art data center houses awesome amounts of computing power, but the biggest technical challenge has been the air handlers.

The company said today that its Prineville, Ore., data center received LEED gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating varies between 1.06 and 1.1, making it a data center that consumes about half what a building simply built to code would use.

The significance of the Prineville center could go beyond lower energy bills and lower emissions for its owner, though. Facebook started the Open Compute consortium to share--and … Read more

Talk about walking the walk when it comes to solar energy.

Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) manufacturer Amonix has built a factory and office space that uses solar panels as the sole power source, the company announced Wednesday.

The 214,000 square-foot facility uses eight of the company's MegaModule CPV solar systems, to serve the entire power need for the production plant and some connected office space. The system supplies "100 percent of the North Las Vegas facility's energy needs," according to Amonix.

Of course, it should be noted that this plant is located in Nevada, an area … Read more

When it comes to imagining the future of computing, the biggest constraint is electrical power rather than raw computing horsepower.

During a keynote talk today at the SC11 conference on supercomputing in Seattle, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said that the graphics processor company now thinks in terms of "power limits" as it designs future products because power has become a limiting factor.

The company makes graphic processing units (GPUs) for video game consoles and professional workstations but its processors are also being used in high-performance computing. One of the primary reasons the Barcelona Supercomputing Center chose to build its system with Nvidia's GPUs and ARM-based CPUs … Read more

Now that's some serious bandwidth.

The Department of Energy today is scheduled to officially unveil the Advanced Networking Initiative, a network that will connect three supercomputer centers at 100 gigabits per second.

The network, which the DOE says is 10 times faster than commercial Internet speeds, will allow for collaborative research in a variety fields, including mining data from the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, predicting changes in the climate, and genetics. Linking the the first three supercomputers at DOE national labs will be announced today at the SC11 supercomputer conference going on this week in Seattle.

Energy Secretary … Read more

One the U.K.'s top 10 energy consumers says it's found a simple and straightforward way to save money.

Phone and broadband giant BT (previously known as British Telecom) announced yesterday that it's on track to save at least 13 million pounds (about $20.6 million) in annual energy bills after switching to smart meters and energy management systems in its office buildings, data centers, and telephone exchanges.

The switch has reduced BT's carbon footprint by 5 percent, or the equivalent of powering 23,000 homes annually, the company said.

Of course, the initial layout was … Read more