Microsoft is to expand its Catapult server project to all of its Bing data centers in 2015.

Results of a recent test were ‘so encouraging’ it has decided to bring its program for adopting the server boards forward.

When Microsoft first detailed the project two months ago, the company said it would use the new technology in one data center starting early next year.

However, early tests have been so encouraging that it has now decided the new server boards will be used in all Bing servers next year.

In a test Microsoft’s Catapult boards, with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), were inserted into 1,632 servers in a data center for its Bing search engine.

The PGA cards were found to have improved Bing’s scoring of documents for relevance compared to a user’s search parameters and Microsoft doubled its performance in search, according to its testing criteria.

It also achieved a 29% reduction in the latency delay to process the search.

The savings allowed Microsoft slash the number of servers it needed by half.

According to Microsoft's corporate VP and head of Microsoft research Peter Lee the new technology in its data centers will help it to improve Bing’s relevance.

Competition with Google searches are hinged on the speed of each competitor’s servers and the wait for results to be returned to searchers.

Data center technology is now a strategic weapon, according to Lee.

“Now the quality of Bing’s page ranking will be driven not only by great algorithms but also by hardware.”

Chinese search engine Baidu is also said to be testing FPGAs.