Jeffrey Skolnick, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, used to just worry about harnessing enough computing power to chase down cancer genes. Today, he’s worried about his electric bill, too.

Skolnick, director of the Institute’s Center for the Study of Systems Biology, in Atlanta, said concerns about server power consumption and heat weighed heavily on researchers who had to design a new 1,000-node computing cluster at Georgia Tech.
“If I’m going to have problems with overheating, and I’m only going to be able to turn on 60 percent of [the nodes], I’m not a happy camper,” said Skolnick, who isn’t the only one fretting about how much electricity his servers gobble up.

Both heat and power have “become a concern in the last 12 months as we have begun to add racks to our new data centers,” said Jevin Jensen, director of IS at Mohawk Industries, in Dalton, Ga. “We are already reworking some [heat and air conditioning units] in one data center to provide better cooling. We are watching this much more closely going forward.”

Chip makers such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are also watching. Lower-power chips are expected to be the focal point of the Intel Developer Forum, which kicks off March 7 in San Francisco.