Precision liquid cooled data hall

Date published

09 Aug 2024

Author

Iceotope

As the demand for efficient data centers continues to grow, the discussion around advanced cooling technologies has never been more important. Precision Liquid Cooling is emerging as an essential solution for data center efficiency, offering substantial benefits over traditional air cooling and other cooling methods to futureproof the sector. 

Air-cooling vs Liquid Cooling

Traditional air cooling, no matter its design efficiency, involves a continuous cycle of heating and re-cooling, consuming significant amounts of energy and requiring extensive mechanical equipment. The equipment needed for this method has to be sourced, manufactured and moved, and while necessary for data center optimisation, it is energy extensive.  

When you look at liquid cooling, it offers a more efficient alternative to air cooling, through its effiecient management of increasing heat densities. It can provide energy savings through capturing and utilising heat for better efficiency. While technologies such as Immersion Cooling and Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) deliver similar direct sustainability gains relative to their ability to capture heat, they present operational and scaling concerns. 

The primary challenge between the different cooling technologies, be it air cooling or tank immersion, is scalability; no matter how green it is, it cannot be effectively deployed and sustainable in its place. Customers do face risks when adopting these approaches, including cost change, how it works, its impact on the future and long-term viability.  

Precision Liquid Cooling: Best of Direct-to-chip and Immersion

Precision Liquid Cooling combines the best of both DLC and Immersion Cooling, while mitigating its negative characteristics. Using dielectric fluids, similar to tank immersion but in smaller quantities, electronics in the server are submerged in liquid to deliver precise cooling to the hottest areas in parallel, therefore consuming almost no energy. This technology gathers 100% heat capture in a rack-based, scalable, serviceable and swappable system, especially for superior cooling performance for high-demand components like 1.5-kilowatt chips. 

As the industry evolves to accommodate new technologies, these challenges are becoming easier to manage. Precision Liquid Cooling can not only help in meeting today’s demands but also prepare for the future, especially in the emerging era of AI workloads.   

Precision Liquid Cooling represents a significant advancement in data center technology by providing efficient, scalable cooling solutions. The journey towards embracing the wider adoption of has Its challenges, but the long-term benefits of sustainability and operational flexibility make it a compelling choice for the future. As we continue to innovate and educate, the path to a more sustainable data center infrastructure and sector itself becomes clearer.