ARM has announced it is leading a Green Cloud Services project called EuroCloud, along with Nokia, IMEC, EPFL, and the University of Cyprus. The research project, which is funded by the European Commission for an initial three years, aims to validate the value proposition of constructing data centers using a combination of low power processing and 3D chip packaging solutions to deliver an improvement in cost- and energy-efficiency compared to the current approach.

“We need breakthroughs in energy-efficient multicore computing. EuroCloud is an exciting research project that brings leading European low-power technologies from embedded computing to general-purpose computing,” said Dr. Panagiotis Tsarchopoulos, who is the project officer in the European Commission.

Use of conventional microprocessors and memory systems provide significant power, cooling and density challenges for CIOs building out data centers. The companies engaged in this program believe that the key to scaling system performance in a cost- and energy-efficient manner requires research and innovation focused on the predicted workloads for the data center of the future, rather than using the approach that has been applied historically to the enterprise server arena.

This research project will investigate the use of the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore multicore processor along with GDDR-class memory structures and packaging technology to enable the building of dense, cost-effective and green data centers through “good enough” nodes of processor performance and high-bandwidth access to server memory.

“The ARM design philosophy has focused on optimizing energy efficiency to enable mobile platforms for 20 years. The performance levels and new functionality supported in our latest processors have reached the level where it is appropriate to see how ARM technology can be applied to solve the massive energy challenges that exist in wireline equipment, including data centers,” said Dr Krisztian Flautner, VP of research at ARM.