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

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...