Asperitas appoints new Research and Development Director

Author: Beatrice

Immersion cooling specialist Asperitas announces that Andy Young has joined the management team as Director of Research & Development.

Young is well-known within the industry, bringing an in-depth knowledge of immersion technology to the role. With a background in mechanical engineering, his career boasts positions at Ansys and also Iceotope, where he was the director of Fluids and Thermal Engineering. He also remains active in the OCP community as part of the Advanced Cooling sub-project. Andy’s appointment follows on from the role of Merijn Koster, who has led the technical developments at Asperitas since 2018. Merijn will stay for the remainder of 2020 to ensure a smooth transfer and will be moving on to pastures new in 2021. Andy will become part of the Management Team within Asperitas and will be responsible for all new product development projects.

“I’m excited to start at Asperitas as a director and feel my experience in thermal design will add value to the team.” says Andy. “Asperitas Immersed Computing technology captures more of the heat generated by IT equipment, reducing the load on HVAC systems without focusing on discrete components. With low energy overheads, Asperitas leads the immersion cooling market alongside Shell and OEMs as strong, strategic partners. The integrated, sustainable solutions are able to meet the industries increasing demands for cooling and energy efficiency.”

Rolf Brink, Asperitas CEO adds: “I’m very pleased to announce this addition to the Management Team with Andy’s appointment as director. His academic expertise and industry background is a great match and greatly increases the value of our industry leadership position. As part of our product development efforts, Andy will be working with our global partners and customers while further strengthening our strategic industry relations. His extensive knowledge of various immersion technologies is a great asset to the Asperitas team.”

In a recent interview, Young was asked why he thought it was now that advanced cooling solutions were gaining momentum and a sense of urgency for adoption. He responds, “Apart from the interminable increase in heat duty, there has also been a broadening of scope of components to cool, where high performance cooling depends on providing highly effective cooling to a greater proportion and diversity of components and form factors. The environmental impact makes liquid cooling, especially immersion, the most viable choice.”

“Ultimately, we are caretakers for the planet and have a responsibility to the next generation to make sustainable decisions now for their future” comments Young, speaking on his take on sustainability. “Reducing energy and increasing density are all very well as drivers to achieve TCO targets but it is essential to account more comprehensively to gauge the life-cycle environmental impact, including water usage, refrigerant consumption and ultimate green-house gas production. The combination of deeper understanding of coupling between IT and the cooling solutions and their broader integration with the facility and building infrastructure enables us to evaluate impact and optimise the whole system.”

Lastly, Young spoke of his expectations for OCP, having recently presented at the OCP Tech Week conference on Advanced Cooling Solutions. “OCP will continue to be an excellent forum for collaboration through which partners can share knowledge and experience to enable the closer integration of the sub-systems necessary to go forward in pace with IT equipment development targets for reduction in greenhouse gases.”

Recognised for his skills and expertise, Young is a Teaching Fellow in Computational Mechanics at the University of Leeds and holds a BEng (hons.) and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Leeds.