HP has said that it will start shipping servers with low-power Arm processors. The chips have been built by the 14-month-old startup Calxeda, which has designed a brand new server design by building its own variation of the low-power ARM microprocessor.

It is one of the the first times that ARM chips have made it to the in the data centre. Calxeda has stuffed 120 of its chips into a single 3.5 inch high server case.

But big data centers are mostly the kingdom of Intel-based systems so it is unlikely that Calxeda will be able to get anyone to replace them. However it could attract builders of new data centres.

Calxeda knows it is going to be hell on toast giving Intel a kicking. The outfit originally called itself Smooth-Stone, a reference to the biblical David-and-Goliath story.

Calexa is to host a product news event on Nov. 1 in Palo Alto, California and that is when we expect HP to be formally pointed out as a key partner.