Cloud on a chip

Intel have announced an experimental chip the size of a stamp with 48 core processors! It's actually 24 'tiles' each with a dual core processor as well as a router, memory controllers and on-chip network.

They're calling it the Single-chip Cloud Computer or SCC as in many ways it replicates the features of a data centre.

This is quite exciting in terms of computing power, because as the cost is driven down it's easy to envisage desktop computers taking on these massively-multi-core processors. But it should also mean that 'Cloud Computing' becomes cheaper as fewer servers will be required for same processing power.

It is only an experimental chip, but it's out early next year for academics and Intel's industry partners. So, heads up to the clouds and watch that space...