Betting that energy savings is now more important to data center operators than server processor power an Austin, TX start-up called Smooth-Stone aims to modify ARM’s low-power smartphone chips to run data center servers used by companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
To succeed they will have to take on Intel, whose fast-running chips can be found in an estimated 90 percent of the servers sold every year.
Smooth-Stone is aptly named for the challenge: the company is so called in recognition of the weapon David used to defeat Goliath.
Today Smooth-Stone announced it has raised $48 million from a group of investors including ARM, Texas Instruments and Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC), an Abu Dhabi-based company that is the majority owner of GlobalFoundries, which, among other ventures handles chip manufacturing duties for AMD.
What do you think? Does Smooth-Stone have a shot? Or will Intel’s entrenched market position and established eco-system (most sever software companies now write applications specifically for Intel chips) allow it to brush off its brash new challenger?
