IBM’s Project Big Green, through which it hopes to reduce its energy output by 80pc over the next five years, has been brought to Hollywood as the company declared its plans to help the media and entertainment industry increase its energy efficiency.
Hollywood studios, especially those rendering complex special effects and animation, use huge banks of computers that Big Green will be targeting.
At the Hollywood Goes Green conference on Tuesday IBM also said it will be developing new technologies by the end of this decade that it hopes will not only reduce power consumption by 50pc but will also improve processing power by 10pc.
IBM will implement this through new servers that use liquid cooling technologies that dispense of the need for air conditioning in data centres – a development that would dramatically reduce energy costs for businesses.
Although consumers alone can have a big impact on energy efficiency by using special light bulbs or hybrid cars, big businesses can have a massive impact through streamlining how they operate their data centres, said Tom Burns, director of post-production infrastructure, Technicolor, speaking at the conference.
“At Technicolor, we are always looking for opportunities to reduce our power footprint,” Burns explained.
“It makes good business sense, and we look forward to hearing from IBM on how we can improve efficiency in our data centres worldwide: both to reduce our environmental impact and to support our global service offerings to the media and entertainment industry,” said Burns.
By Marie Boran
