US chip maker Intel and South Korean Mobile carrier KT showcased a test data center on Tuesday. With the high temperature ambience (HTA) prototype, the 2 companies aim to reduce the cost of air conditioning therefore allowing data centers to operate at over 30 degrees Celsius. Most data centers are run at 22 degrees Celsius. With the HTA system, equipment at these facilities may be run at higher temperature without risk of malfunction. A cloud-based data center running on the HTA system is expected to be set up in Cheonan, situated 92 kilometers to the South of Seoul, by 2013. The 2 companies will then roll out the system to the rest of KT owned data centers in the country.
Once the HTA system is applied to all 10 of KT’s data center’s, the company expects to save a sum of 8.6 billion won per annum. Nationwide, it is expected that 44.8 billion will be saved if the system is adopted by every data center. There is a big demand for data centers, therefore many of these facilities have been set up in response to the high amount of devices getting connected to the internet. Korea has 100 data centers currently. This coupled with the recent heat that has been scorching the nation has posed a major challenge to the energy conservation efforts. In 2011 alone, energy costs rose by 4.9% in August, by 4.5% in December and a 4.9% increase in August this year.
At a joint press conference, Intel Korea country manager Lee Hee-sung said that he saw the joint HTA center project as a product that will certify Intel-based platforms as a standard in the industry. The senior executive vice president of KT’s service innovation division, Song Jung-hee, sees the cooperation between the 2 companies as a good foundation for green energy. The project will allow an increase in the number of data center facilities. “We will secure the know-how in making data centers function in high temperatures, and furthermore, open a consulting business in making such centers for domestic and foreign clients,” he said.
Data centers account for a sum of 26 billion dollars of the global electricity costs annually, this corresponds to 1.5% of the global power consumed by the facilities. According to Intel, this will double up by 2014. KT and Intel aim at securing the know-how on how to set up functional data centers in high temperatures and provide consultation to both foreign and domestic clients.
via Korea Times
