Chennai/Bangalore: Chip maker Intel on Wednesday launched a concept version of 48 core Intel processor — ‘Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC) — where the engineers of is R&D lab in Bangalore have contributed quite significantly. SCC is an experimental prototype designed as a concept vehicle for parallel software research.

The concept chip developed by about 40 engineers from Intel Labs in Germany, the US and Bangalore, has a second generation 2D mesh network, and uses one third the power as against the previous generation chips. A team of about 15 engineers from its lab in Bangalore contributed in terms of circuit/physical design of the IA (Intel architecture) core, memory controller logic and mesh interconnect network.

“We started working on this almost two years ago after we finished the previous generation’s 80-core Teraflop processor. All three labs have equally contributed for the project,” said Vasantha Erraguntla, senior engineering manager, Intel Labs, India. She said the company believed that SCC would become an ideal research platform to help accelerate many core software research and advance development.

“The complexity of the chip is multi-fold, with a much larger die size, system level complexities and challenges of 45 nanometre physical design. The belief of the global team in our capabilities and the dedication displayed by the team at the Bangalore labs enabled us to build this research prototype successfully and take us yet another step forward in the tera-scale journey,” she added.

Even though the company said a processor like this could huge application in the field of cloud computing, the commercialisation of the product requires at least 2-3 years of more search to make the software applications ready before releasing this. Cloud datacenters are comprised of tens to thousands of computers connected by a physically-cabled network, distributing large tasks and massive datasets in parallel. Intel’s experimental research chip uses a similar approach. However, all the computers and networks are integrated on a single piece of Intel 45nm silicon reducing the amount of physical computers needed to create a cloud datacenter.

“With a chip like this, you could imagine a cloud data centre of the future which will be an order of magnitude more energy efficient than what exists today, saving significant resources on space and power costs,” said Justin Rattner, head of Intel Labs and Intel’s chief technology officer. He said that processors like this could find applications in mainstream devices in the same way “just as advanced automotive technology such as electronic engine control, air bags and anti-lock braking eventually found their way into all cars.”

New Delhi: India’s fifth-largest IT company HCL Technologies on Tuesday announced a five-year deal with media conglomerate News Corp for managing its data centres and IT across UK newspapers like The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times.

Under the deal, HCL will be transforming News Corp’s UK subsidiary News International’s data centres and migrating its operating systems to a lower cost solution. The deal is pegged to be in the range of $200-250 million, according to industry experts. Company officials denied to disclose the deal size. “We will be managing and consolidating News International’s data centres and IT. The data centres will remain hosted in the UK. We will be managing them remotely from our facilities in India, and also onsite from UK. This will drive a reduction in their capex and result in significant savings for the client,” Pradeep Bindal, senior VP and worldwide sales head at HCL Technologies’ Infrastructure Services Division told ET.

HCL Technologies scrip rose 0.8% on the BSE to close at Rs 348.90, post announcement of the deal in the afternoon on Tuesday. The Noida-based IT major claims to have over 40 clients in the media, publishing and entertainment (MPE) vertical. MPE vertical constitutes about 6.8 per cent of HCL Technologies’ revenues. The company has one of the largest remote infrastructure management facilities amongst all IT vendors in the country. It had signed a seven-year, $350-million deal in March this year with Reader’s Digest Association, before the US-based publishing major filed for a bankruptcy petition in August.

The company had also signed a deal with Viacom (owner of brands such as MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and VH1), for developing an online media content and platform. Mckinsey and Nasscom have jointly estimated IT infrastructure management to gross $28 billion in the next 5 years.