SeaMicro preps for growth

SeaMicro says it’s getting ready for a big demand for its tiny servers.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., startup announced this week that it’s expanding into a new headquarters in Silicon Valley that can hold 250 employees and support the development of more than 100,000 of its signature servers.

SeaMicro is aiming to lessen the amount of massive amounts of power used by conventional data centers. Volume servers account for more than $3 billion in electricity costs in the United States – many of those costs are unnecessary, according to SeaMicro. 

That’s because computing needs have changed, especially as more operations and services become Web-based. Many companies no longer need the same type of computing power, yet they still rely on conventional servers designed to tackle complex computing tasks.

SeaMicro’s servers take up about one-quarter of the space and use about one-quarter of the power of other servers, according to the company. The servers are designed to accommodate businesses’ biggest computing needs, like managing Web traffic.

The company, which is backed by investments from Khosla Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Crosslink Capital, emerged from stealth mode in mid-2010, after snagging $9.3 million as part of a federal stimulus-funded initiative to increase data center efficiency. Its most recent entry into the $50-billion-per-year server market was unveiled in early 2011.

"SeaMicro is continuing its tremendous growth, “ SeaMicro chief executive Andrew Feldman said in a statement. “We are hiring in all aspects of the business and adding seasoned executive talent as well.”

While SeaMicro addresses data center power usage by rethinking server architecture, other companies are taking different approaches. Silicon Valley-based Power Assure, for example, employs load-shifting to increase data center efficiency. Another California startup, SynapSense, boosts efficiency through wireless systems that manage data center cooling.