Intel tries to reconcile global warming and Moore's Law

Stan Beer
Sunday, 08 June 2008 07:31

Opinion and Analysis

Driving a V8 gas guzzler in these days of skyrocketing fuel prices and fossil fuel induced climate change is no longer considered cool. So why should it be cool to own a supercharged power hungry desktop or laptop computer? Is Moore's Law dead? Not according to Intel.

Last week, Intel Australia along with Dell, Lenovo and EDS launched the Climate Savers Computing Initiative in Australia (www.climatesaverscomputing.org) at the Going Green Expo in Melbourne.

For those of you who don't know, Intel's famous co-founder Gordon Moore stated in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip (read power) would double every two years. With Moore's Law proving correct, it would seem paradoxical for Intel to be hosting an event concerned with reducing the environmental impact of computers. Or would it?

At the Climate Savers media event, Intel's Lorie Wigle, global leader of Intel’s Eco-Technology effort and co-chairperson of the Board of Directors and president of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, was clear that computers had a big role to play in the fight against greenhouse gases.

"Improving the energy efficiency of computers is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions,” she explained.

Not so clear, however, is how the incessant drive toward more powerful computers with more powerful processors is congruent with the drive to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

As Intel correctly points out, greenhous gas emissions is by no means just about the desktop. Consolidation and rationalisation of server resources through virtualisation and other methods as a means of reducing power consumption is becoming standard practice at many data centres.

But what about the desktop? Please read on to page 2