Study Commissioned by AMD Reveals Scope of Annual U.S. Data Center Energy Consumption

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, February 15, 2007, 10:40 AM EDT

Study Commissioned by AMD Reveals Scope of Annual U.S. Data Center Energy Consumption: 45 Billion kWh, at Cost of Nearly 3 Billion Dollars

- AMD Calls for Increased Collaboration between Technology Industry and Government Officials to Track and Reduce Energy Consumption -

NEW YORK - Feb. 15, 2007 - In a keynote address at the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit in New York today, Randy Allen, corporate vice president, Server and Workstation Division, AMD (NYSE: AMD), revealed findings from a study that comprehensively calculated, for the first time, the energy consumed by national and global data centers annually. Addressing the need for thorough, credible estimates on data center power use, the study found that in 2005, in the U.S. alone, data centers and their associated infrastructure consumed five million kW of energy, the equivalent of five 1,000 MW power plants.

As a result of the study's startling findings and to demonstrate its commitment to lead the industry to energy-efficient computing, AMD is challenging stakeholders both within and outside the industry to step-up efforts to increase energy efficiency in order to reduce energy consumption and associated costs.

Supported by a grant from AMD and authored by Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., staff scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and consulting professor, Stanford University, the study calculates the total power used by servers both in the U.S. and around the world. The study builds on data from analyst firm IDC on the stocks and shipments of servers, as well as measured data and published estimates of the power per unit used by various server models. READ MORE...

Tags: AMD, data center, Energy, Data, Study, One, EA, Scope, U.S., center, AM, COM, ALS

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com