UPDATE: Facebook Designs New Servers, Unveils 'Open Compute Project'

Facebook Inc. on Thursday revealed it had build a new kind of computer server that is 38% more energy efficient and 24% more cost effective than the machines the social networking giant was previously using, and said it would share its design with others.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said its new server design was built from scratch, optimized for social networking software and being installed Facebook's newly-built data center in Prineville, Ore.

In a highly unusual move, Facebook said it will publish the technical specifications and files for the Prineville data center's servers, power supplies, server racks, battery backup systems and building design.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said he hoped that launching the Open Compute Project and sharing the design would encourage industry-wide collaboration around best practices for data center and server technology.

He said the growing trend to process more data in real time has created huge demands on data center infrastructure, causing bottlenecks in powering those data centers because servers were not sufficiently power efficient or cost effective.

Frank Frankovsy, director of hardware design at Facebook, said his company hopes that by sharing its server design, other companies will be able to focus on applications and developing for the social web.

Facebook's move comes as technology titans like Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Twitter Inc. are scrambling to build vast new data centers to so they can provide computing resources, data-storage capacity and software services to companies and consumers over the Internet, known as cloud computing in industry jargon.

"We think it's time to demystify the biggest capital expense of an online business--the infrastructure," said Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook's vice president of technical operations.

Partners to Facebook's hardware initiative include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Dell Inc. (DELL), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Intel Corp. (INTC).

"Companies with extreme computing needs continue to seek innovative technology that extends the boundaries of what is possible today while challenging their partners to reach new lows in energy usage," said Greg Huff, H-P's chief technology officer for industry standard servers and software.

-By Scott Morrison, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-6118; scott.morrison@dowjones.com

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