The new chips are targeted at blade servers and data centres looking to address cooling issues and mammoth power bills. The world's data centres are racking up $US7.2 billion in power bills every year, $US2.7 million of which comes from the US, according to a study commissioned by AMD.

Total data centre electricity consumption in 2005, in the US alone, was approximately 45 billion kWh once you allow for cooling and auxiliary equipment. This represented 1.2 per cent of US electricity consumption, comparable to the amount of power consumed by all of the country's colour televisions.{moscomment}