Are Google already prepared for the next generation of low powered servers with ARM processors?

Specifically the targeting of the Javascript v8 engine and the Go system programming language at ARM suggest that Google have planned for a future with ARM based servers, as neither is particularly useful for Android. Their work on bringing high performance code to the ARM architecture suggests that they are already thinking about it, if not already using them in production.

So what would a Google ARM server look like? With fully-built ARM servers fitting into a credit card sized space, perhaps we’re looking at a bare motherboard supplying power and connectivity, with fully functioning ARM servers sat in slots like memory chips in an x86 motherboard? And for storage, perhaps each one has a single consumer specification SSD, or will Google move away from local storage in the future?

Unfortunately there’s no way to be sure for now, perhaps Google have only done some basic trials on ARM and decided it’s too early, but I’m sure that in 2012 we’ll hear rumours of Google deploying low cost ARM servers in significant numbers.

Update: As Justin Cormack correctly points out, Android 2.2 and up uses v8 for it’s browser (which isn’t Chrome)

Photo by 37 Prime on Flickr, Creative Commons ShareAlike