HP launches plan to build low-power servers

HP has unveiled plans to develop extremely low-energy servers, partnering with companies including chip designers ARM and AMD in a move that could threaten the dominance of Intel.

Explosive growth in data centres is taking up increasing amounts of electricity and tech companies are looking for ways to make servers more efficient and trim their energy bills.

Energy-efficient chips made using ARM technology are widely used in tablets and smartphones and ARM executives have said they want to make them popular for personal computers and corporate servers too.

The British chip designer last week unveiled its first 64-bit architecture, which it said would expand its reach into enterprise applications such as servers currently dominated by Intel.

As well as chip designers, HP's program will include storage, networking and software companies.

Intel's chips are used in 80 percent of the world's personal computers and servers and, while they are more powerful than ARM-based chips, they also use much more electricity.

Intel is rushing to use its lead in high-tech manufacturing to make its processors more energy efficient.

Nvidia, another semiconductor company, said in January it was developing processors for PCs, servers and supercomputers based on ARM's architecture under the title "Project Denver."

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; and Andre Grenon)