Intel Labs has designed a new single chip cloud computing solution that offers 48 processor cores on a single die and high speed on chip network for inter-core communication. Intel says that this single chip could one day offer high-performance cloud computing in ultraportable form factor.
The 48 core chip is as small as quad-core desktop chips offered by Intel today and it can be configured to work on as little as 25W of power. Software can be used to control individual cores and automatically scale performance based on requirements. On full load the processor consumers just 125W power.
Intel says that the chip is more efficient in both power and performance efficiency when compared to servers with multiple processors, because the distance between the cores is much smaller and accompanying software can transfer data between cores directly rather than via memory on the motherboard.
Intel didn’t provide any other technical details about the processor, but the company plans to give hundred new chips to researchers for development of new software applications and programming models that can use the processing power of the new chip. Intel, Yahoo and HP have already started porting cloud-computing apps to the chip for demonstration purposes. We have added a video below in which various Intel engineers talk about the new 48-core chip.