The new design will feature a number of novel new features, including a liquid cooling system and additional registers, arithmetic and compression units to speed operations.

Fujitsu senior vice president Noriyuki Toyoki introduced the project on Sunday at the start of Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. A press conference was held on Monday to divulge more details about the design.

Toyoki stressed the need for the next generation of servers to be big enough to handle big data jobs, such as diagnosing illness, refining agricultural processes and analyzing sentiment in social media. He stressed the best approach to serve such jobs would be an integrated process where the CPU is modified so it can better execute specific tasks needed by Oracle's database and business intelligence software.

"This machine will be a true accomplishment of true engineering cooperation between Fujitsu and Oracle. Athena will be a world-class defining moment for server technology," Toyoki said. "This server will only be achievable through deep technology discussions between Fujitsu and Oracle."

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison also voiced high expectations for the new chip.