Chip-designer ARM wants to push itself in the server market and take on Intel on its home ground. Chief Executive Officer Warren East said that it will take a bit of time, perhaps a run up, with the wind behind it, but ARM could start chipping away at Intel dominance in the server market by 2014 if the Gods are willing.

He said that server manufacturers are already looking at chips based on ARM’s technology particularly as the outfit has been planning servers which need less power and will make data centres more efficient. However, it would take years before there were a lot of ARM servers system designers who were actively considering ARM architectures, East claimed.

He is really doing unto Intel what it is planning to do unto Arm in the mobile market. While Intel rules supreme on the server market, Arm is in control of Intel's dream – the mobile market. After a decade of trying to break into phones, Intel says its chips will begin appearing in models by the second half of next year, which is a prediction remarkably like East's for server chips.

ARM's plans for servers involve adapting mobile-phone chip design, based around its Cortex lineup. This technology has been under the bonnet of the iPhone, as well as gear using Android. ARM-designed chips are really happy when they are free from battery constraints and can run fast enough to power servers, East said. Because they were designed from the ground up to work on battery power, they’re more energy-efficient than Intel chips and aren’t as hot.

He claimed that a server with ARM chips could run on half the lecky that an Intel chip needs. People make predictions all the time, I have predicted several times that I will win the lottery. However Arm is in good position to make its predictions come true.