LucasFilm, AMD Expand Partnership For Datacenters

At the launch of the new Quad Core AMD Opteron processor at Lucasfilm's Letterman Digital Arts Center, AMD and Lucasfilm announced an expansion of their partnership to build energy-efficient datacenters for digital arts and entertainment production, including game creation. According to an official release, Lucasfilm's global operations at the LDAC and in Singapore are currently powered by AMD Opteron processors to help create and render visual content for major motion pictures, television programs and next-gen games. With the introduction of the native quad-core server processors, Lucasfilm says it hopes to take advantage of the increased computing performance while maintaining the same thermal and cooling requirements as dual-core AMD Opteron processors. Lucasfilm has been extensively discussing the process of integrating their successful feature film and video games divisions in recent months, which also includes using the same hardware for asset creation and rendering. Said Kevin Clark, director of IT operations for Lucasfilm, "We are consistently required to raise the bar by producing cutting edge imagery, and AMD's Quad Core technology has the potential to make a substantial impact on our capabilities going forward. Coupled with our requirements of high-performance is our desire to become a model of energy efficiency, and this is in lock-step with AMD's focus on delivering powerful yet energy-efficient processors."