Intel Research has developed an experimental chip with 48 cores. The chip is intended to allow advanced new highly parallel software architectures to be developed with ultimate uses including cloud computing environments and data centres.
Intel plans to use this reasearch to gain a better understanding of how to schedule and coordinate multiple cores of this experimental chip for its future mainstream chips.
Oh and in order to get a green IT tick, the announcement from Intel also says that this chip consumes the equivalent of 1 ordinary household lightbulb.
More info from Intel here http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2009/20091202comp_sm.htm
