On Tuesday, 17-year-old Thomas Sohmers unveiled a new super fast computer server that uses a fraction of the electricity that a normal computer does.

He's showing it off at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit happening this week in San Francisco.

This computer is the first product from Sohmers' startup, REX Computing, created with 52-year-old co-founder and CTO Kurt Keville.

The computer is a very powerful machine built with ARM processors, the kind low-power processors that run smartphones and tablets. These servers allow more computing power to be packed into a smaller space. And that has big implications for building green-but-powerful data centers.

"I think of myself as an entrepreneur besides just being an electrical engineer. I believe what I'm doing can have a major effective on the world," Sohmers said.

He dropped out of high school to join Peter Thiel's controversial startup accelerator, the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship. Thiel, the former PayPal CEO and famous Silicon Valley venture capitalist known for his early investment in Facebook, is a libertarian who has often spoken out about the absurd cost of college these days.

So in 2011, he started a program that encourages kids to start companies instead of going to college. It gives them $100,000 in seed money and access to some of the Valley's greatest technologists as mentors.

Sohmers is an electrical engineering prodigy who at age 13 started working at the research lab at MIT. That's where he met his co-founder and CTO, Keville, he said.

With his technical genius and startup launched, he's not planning on going back and finishing high school, either.

"This is my third time applying for the Fellowship. I first applied when I was 14," he said. "I told my parents when I first applied and they weren’t really supportive. But then they kind of saw what I was doing in high school, I wasn’t spending my time as effectively as I could. I started spending more of my time at MIT and they understood. When I did receive the fellowship, they were supportive."

Fortunately for Sohmers, he's in good hands. He's part of class No. 3 and Thiel fellows have a promising track record so far: it's launched 67 companies that have created 135 full-time jobs and raised $55.4 million in angel and venture funding, the Wall Street Journal's Lora Kolodny reports.

At 17, Sohmers is unconcerned that being a high-school dropout will affect his career in any way.

"If I don’t end up changing the world with this I can find something else," he said. "People think that there’s a big thought war between these two sides [education versus entrepreneurship]. But when it comes to the researchers, they care less about the degrees that you have, and more about what you can actually do."

【新聞快訊】

本周二，年僅17歲的Thomas Sohmers推出了一個全新的高速計算機服務(wù)器，該計算機功耗極低，該計算機使用了低能耗的ARM處理器，而其所需電量僅為一臺普通電腦一小部分。

在本周在舊金山舉行的Open Compute Project (OCP)大會上，Sohmers展示了這臺服務(wù)器。

這個產(chǎn)品是Sohmers所創(chuàng)辦的企業(yè)REX所推出的第一個產(chǎn)品，REX的另一位創(chuàng)始人為52歲的Kurt Keville，目前Keville擔(dān)任公司的CTO。

Sohmers所推出的這個產(chǎn)品，可謂將高速運算能力和低能耗集為一體。Sohmers表示：“除了電子工程師外，我認(rèn)為我還是一位創(chuàng)業(yè)者。我相信，我所作的工作，將會對整個世界產(chǎn)生重要的影響?！?/p>

Sohmers在幾年前從高中輟學(xué)，加入了Peter Thiel創(chuàng)立的創(chuàng)業(yè)加速器20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship。2011年，在其他同齡人都在準(zhǔn)備考大學(xué)的時候，Sohmers開始學(xué)習(xí)編程。他獲得了10萬美元的種子資金，并且跟隨硅谷中一些著名的技術(shù)人才進行學(xué)習(xí)。

Sohmers曾在麻省理工學(xué)院研究實驗室進行工作和學(xué)習(xí)，研究從增強現(xiàn)實眼鏡到激光通信系統(tǒng)的任何東西。也是在那里，他見到了REX的另一位聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人Kurt Keville。但是在他正式進入麻省理工學(xué)院研究室之前，他的父母似乎并不太支持他放棄學(xué)業(yè)。

Sohmers表示：“我曾經(jīng)先后三次申請加入麻省理工學(xué)院研究室。我第一次申請的時候是14歲，那時我的父母并不太支持我。但是后來他們發(fā)現(xiàn)我在高中里學(xué)習(xí)并不快樂。于是他們開始慢慢理解了我的想法?，F(xiàn)在他們對我的工作非常支持?！?/p>

在加入麻省理工學(xué)院研究室之后，Sohmers終于找到了屬于自己的天地。如今已經(jīng)17歲的Sohmers表示，自己并不后悔放棄學(xué)業(yè)，進行創(chuàng)業(yè)。

他表示：“即使我無法改變世界，也會收獲一些其他的東西。人們在討論上學(xué)和創(chuàng)業(yè)的時候，總是顧慮太多。但是企業(yè)是在研究者眼中，你的學(xué)歷高低并不重要，重要的是你的能力。”?