Foxconn, known for manufacturing the iPhone for Apple and for creating data centers for HP, has announced it is working to develop a 4G containerized data center with a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of between 1.25 and1.30.

It said it could improve energy efficiency in modular units if it can integrate renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic technology to convert solar power into electricity.

The challenge is in packing the new units into the limited space available in a ready made data center unit.

Efficient modules

Although the company admits it cannot emulate the likes of Yahoo (its Lockport New York data center has a PUE of 1.08) Facebook (Prineville in Oregon, has a PUE of 1.07) or Google (its data centers have 1.16 PUE) it said it can become the most energy efficient supplier of prefabricated systems for the rapid construction sector.

The electronics manufacturing firm extended its range from making Apple iPads, Amazon Kindles and Sony and Microsoft gaming consoles, when it won a contract to build data centers for 21Vianet, a Chinese data center services provider.

The two will also jointly provide cloud services.

A Foxconn senior VP, Fuming Fu, said: “We look forward to bringing our many years of technology development and manufacturing experience to the [data center] industry.”

Foxconn also makes servers, storage arrays and networking equipment for IT vendors, and runs a factory in the Czech Republic that produces HP’s modular performance optimized data centers.