IBM announces 'Project Big Green'

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM today announced “Project Big Green” in India. The initiative includes new products and services for IBM and its clients to sharply reduce data center energy consumption, transforming the world’s business and public technology infrastructures into “green” data centers.

IBM launched this initiative as part of the global Intelligent Energy campaign, aimed at helping economies cope with the existing and impending energy crisis. Last month, IBM announced that it will redirect US$ 1 billion a year, globally, across its businesses, to mobilize the company’s resources to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in IT.

IBM’s efforts under the Intelligent Energy campaign will be channeled through four specific initiatives - IBM’s Client Innovations in Energy, IBM’s Application of Technology & Services for Energy Efficiency, IBM’s Activities with Energy Influencers, and Environmental Efforts at Big Blue.

With its work under each of these pillars, IBM aims to create a holistic approach to addressing the energy issue facing the globe. Announcing “Project Big Green” in India, Steven Sams, vice president - Site & Facilities Services, IBM said, “Businesses around the world are consuming extreme amounts of energy through their use of information technology --- over 100 billion kilowatts per year globally -- furthering today's energy crisis.

In 2007, there will be $10 billion spent on data center energy worldwide, and IDC predicts that power and cooling spend in the data center will grow at eight times the rate of hardware spend.”

“The fact is that the data center energy crisis is inhibiting our clients’ business growth now and in the future. According to Morgan Stanley, energy used to power and cool today’s data centers represents 44 percent of a data center’s total cost of ownership – and for a company of any size today, this can be a huge saving, besides it being a great contribution towards protecting the environment.” he added.