An EU-funded research project, the Eurocloud project, looks set to drastically cut the electricity and the installation costs of servers in cloud computing data centres. It has adapted low-power microprocessor technologies, typically used in mobile phones, to work on a much larger scale. Preliminary measurements show that using these technologies reduces power needs by 90%, compared to conventional servers.

The Eurocloud project has adapted low-power microprocessor technologies, typically used in mobile phones, to work on a much larger scale. The special 3D microchip, being designed by this EU-funded research project, seeks to drastically cut the electricity and the installation costs of servers in cloud computing data centres, cementing Europe's place as the home of green computing. EuroCloud targets server chips that will cost 10 times less to buy and will consume 10 times less energy when they operate compared to current state-of-the-art servers. In May 2011, the Commission opened a public consultation on cloud computing in Europe.

This project involves researchers in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland and Cyprus, and it received EU funding of € 3.3 million over 3 years. Preliminary measurements show that using these technologies reduces power needs by 90%, compared to conventional servers. In fact, these results have the potential to make data-centre investment affordable for more European companies – growing a new industry – while saving the cloud computing customers of data centres billions of euros, according to the European Commission.

The data centres are essential because they enable the cloud computing revolution: consumer services like Facebook, Gmail, Spotify and mobile apps, and business services like customer databases. Cloud data centres – thousands of computer servers in one location - can be the size of football fields and consume the same amount of electricity as 40,000 homes.