Liquid Cooling Technologies Driving Data Centre Efficiency

Iceotope achieves chip cooling industry milestone at 1000W

Iceotope has achieved chip-level cooling up to 1000W and beyond. The published results in, 'Achieving chip cooling at 1000W and beyond with single phase precision liquid cooling', validate how single-phase liquid cooling can achieve 1000W cooling and the thermal performance of precision liquid cooling. The data centre industry is looking to liquid cooling as the solution for solving challenges such as the compute densities required for AI, the overall rising thermal design power of IT equipment, and the need for sustainable cooling solutions. Data centre operators must know they are future-proofing their infrastructure investment for 1000W to 1500W to 2000W CPUs and GPUs in the coming years. The testing conducted by Iceotope Labs has demonstrated how precision liquid cooling technology is expected to meet these challenges.  Key findings from the testing include:  At a flow rate of 7l/min, Iceotope's copper-pinned KUL SINK achieved a thermal resistance of 0.039K/W when a 1000W heat load was applied to Intel’s Airport Cove thermal test vehicle (TTV), a thermal emulator for the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. This translates to an 11.4% improvement in thermal resistance, compared to a like-for-like test of a tank immersion product containing a forced-flow heatsink.  Thermal resistance remains almost constant at a given flow rate as the power was increased from 250W to 1000W.   The results demonstrate high confidence that testing at 1500W will yield the same consistency based on the testing of the thermal resistance from 250W to 1000W.   “Iceotope precision liquid cooling technology has achieved an important industry milestone by demonstrating enhanced thermal performance capability compared to other competing liquid cooling technologies,” says Neil Edmunds, Vice President of Product Management at Iceotope.  “We are confident that future testing of our standard solution at elevated power levels will demonstrate further inherent cooling capability. Iceotope is also continuing to develop new solutions which enable even higher roadmap power levels to be attained in a safe, sustainable and scalable way.”  “The ability to cool 1000W silicon is a key milestone in building the runway for silicon with higher thermal design power and enabling efficient data centre and Edge cluster solutions of the future,” says Mohan J Kumar, Intel Fellow.  Read more latest news from Iceotope here.

Concentric AB wins business nomination in liquid cooling market

Concentric AB has announced that it has received its first new multi-year business nomination from a leading global OEM customer in the data centre liquid cooling market. The value of this new business is 63MSEK per year, and the start of production is planned in the first quarter of 2025. This strategic customer selected Concentric’s seal-less e-pump based on its innovative design, proven endurance and dependability for its new data centre liquid cooling application. The global data centre market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10-13% over the next six years. There is a clear trend towards liquid cooling in these applications, and it is anticipated that liquid cooling in data centres will grow at a faster rate of 24.4% during the same period, according to a report by MarketsAndMarkets Research. AI has redefined the way chips are designed and utilised in the semiconductor industry, leading to optimised energy efficiency and performance for larger datasets. As performance requirements increase, so does the need for cooling. Liquid cooling is more effective than air cooling in handling a data centre's growing densities, as these systems directly dissipate heat from the battery cells through the coolant, allowing customers to achieve precise temperature control, unaffected by external conditions. “This first business nomination from a global market leading OEM for data centre cooling systems is another testimonial of the successful execution of our growth plans into new markets. As with our previous wins in energy storage applications, data centres are another new market where our existing products, which are already proven to manage similar liquid cooling challenges, can fulfil the customer’s needs. This new business serves as a significant gateway for Concentric into this highly attractive and fast-growing market and I am extremely proud of our global sales and engineering team, who has developed this new solution with the customer, based on an existing Concentric product,” says Martin Kunz, President and CEO Concentric AB.

Building the telco edge

By Nathan Blom, Chief Commercial Officer, Iceotope With the growing migration of data to the edge, telco providers are facing new challenges in the race to net zero. Applications like IoT and 5G require ultra-low latency and high scalability to process large volumes of data close to where the data is generated, often in remote locations. Mitigating power constraints, simplifying serviceability and significantly driving down maintenance costs are rapidly becoming top priorities. Operators are tasked with navigating these changes in a sustainable and cost-effective manner, while working towards their net zero objectives. Liquid cooling is one solution able to help them do just that. Challenges facing telco operators The major challenges confronting telco operators can be distilled into three fundamental aspects: power constraints, increased density, and rising costs. The limitations of available power in the grid pose a significant challenge. Both urban areas and the extreme edge have concerns about diverting power from other essential activities. As telcos demand more data processing, increased computational power, and GPUs, power consumption becomes a critical bottleneck. This constraint pushes operators to find innovative solutions to reduce power consumption. Telco operators also face the dual challenge of increasing the number of towers while also enhancing the capacity of each tower. This requirement to boost compute power at each node and increase the number of nodes strains both power budgets and computational capabilities. The pursuit of maximising the value of each location becomes critical. Finally, the combination of increased density, heightened service costs per site, and a surge in operational expenses (OPEX) due to the need for service and maintenance leads to rising costs, particularly at the extreme edge. The logistics and expenses of servicing remote sites drive up OPEX, making it a pressing concern for telco operators. Liquid cooling as a solution One promising avenue to address these challenges is liquid cooling. Cooling is a vital aspect of data centre operations, consuming approximately 40% of the total electricity used. Liquid cooling is rapidly becoming the solution of choice to efficiently and cost-effectively accommodate today’s compute requirements. However, not all liquid cooling solutions are the same.  Direct-to-chip appears to offer the highest cooling performance at chip levels, but because it still requires air cooling, it adds inefficiencies at the system level. It is a nice interim solution to cool the hottest chips, but it does not address the longer-term goals of sustainability, serviceability, and scalability. Meanwhile, tank immersion offers a more sustainable option at the system level, but requires a complete rethink of data centre design. This works counter to the goals of density, scalability, and most importantly, serviceability. Facility and structural requirements mean brownfield data centre space is essentially eliminated as an option for both of those solutions, not to mention special training is required to service the equipment.   Precision liquid cooling combines the best of both technologies, by removing nearly 100% of the heat generated by the electronic components of a server and reducing energy use by up to 40% and water consumption by up to 100%. It does this by using a small amount of dielectric coolant to precisely target and remove heat from the hottest components of the server, ensuring maximum efficiency and reliability. This eliminates the need for traditional air-cooling systems and allows for greater flexibility in designing IT solutions. There are no hotspots to slow down performance, no wasted physical space on unnecessary cooling infrastructure, and minimal need for water consumption. Precision liquid cooling also reduces stress on chassis components, reducing component failures by 30% and extending server lifecycles. Servers can be hot swapped at both the data centre and at remote locations. Service calls are simplified and eliminate exposure to environmental elements on-site, de-risking service operations. Operating within standard rack-based chassis, Precision liquid cooling is also highly scalable. Telco operators can effortlessly expand their compute capacity from a single node to a full rack, adapting to evolving needs. The telco industry is on the cusp of a transformative era. Telco operators are grappling with the challenges of power constraints, increased density, and rising costs, particularly at the extreme edge. Precision liquid cooling offers a sustainable solution to these challenges. As the telecommunications landscape continues to evolve, embracing innovative cooling solutions becomes a strategic imperative for slashing energy and maintenance costs while driving toward sustainability goals. It's going to be an exciting time for the future of compute.

Vertiv's acquisition of CoolTera boosts liquid cooling portfolio

Vertiv has announced that subsidiaries of the company have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all of the shares of CoolTera, a provider of coolant distribution infrastructure for data centre liquid cooling technology and certain assets, including certain contracts, patents, trademarks, and intellectual property from an affiliate of CoolTera. Founded in 2016 and based in the UK, CoolTera provides liquid cooling infrastructure solutions, and designs and manufactures coolant distribution units (CDU), secondary fluid networks (SFN), and manifolds for data centre liquid cooling solutions. CoolTera and Vertiv have been technology partners for three years with multiple global deployments to data centres and super compute systems. The acquisition of CoolTera brings advanced cooling technology, deep domain expertise, controls and systems, and manufacturing and testing for high density compute cooling requirements to Vertiv’s already robust thermal management portfolio, as well as key industry partnerships already in place across the ecosystem for such applications. CoolTera has a proven track record of engineering excellence and strong customer service supported by a team of highly qualified, proven liquid cooling engineers. “This bolt-on technology acquisition is consistent with our long-term strategic vision for value creation, and further strengthens our expertise in high-density cooling solutions,” says Giordano Albertazzi, Chief Executive Officer, Vertiv. “And while the purchase price is not material to Vertiv, the acquisition is essential to further reinforce our liquid cooling portfolio, enhancing our ability to serve the needs of our global data centre customers and strengthening our position and capabilities to support the needs of AI at scale.” “It was a logical decision to join the Vertiv family,” says Mark Luxford, CoolTera’s Managing Director. “We are excited to join the leader in data centre thermal management. Vertiv has demonstrated the ability to scale technologies at a pace that is needed for AI deployment. We look forward to working as a team to deliver next generation liquid cooling technologies at the scale the industry requires. Vertiv is well-positioned to support the industry growth.” The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to customary closing conditions.      

Vertiv and Intel join forces to accelerate AI adoption  

Vertiv has announced that it is collaborating with Intel to provide a liquid cooling solution that will support the revolutionary new Intel Gaudi3 AI accelerator, scheduled to launch in 2024. AI applications and high-performance computing emit higher amounts of heat, and organisations are increasingly turning to liquid cooling solutions for more efficient and eco-friendly cooling options.   The Intel Gaudi3 AI accelerator will enable both liquid-cooled and air-cooled servers, supported by Vertiv pumped two-phase (P2P) cooling infrastructure. The liquid-cooled solution has been tested up to 160kW accelerator power using facility water from 17°C up to 45°C (62.6°F to 113°F). The air-cooled solution has been tested up to 40kW of heat load that can be deployed in warm ambient air data centres up to 35°C (95°F). This medium pressure direct P2P refrigerant-based cooling solution will help customers implement heat reuse, warm water cooling, free air cooling and reductions in power usage effectiveness (PUE), water usage effectiveness (WUE) and total cost of ownership (TCO). “The Intel Gaudi3 AI accelerator provides the perfect solution for a Vertiv and Intel collaboration,” says John Niemann, SVP Global Thermal Line, Vertiv. “Vertiv continues to expand our broad liquid cooling portfolio, resulting in our ability to support leaders of next generation AI technologies, like Intel. Vertiv helps customers accelerate the adoption of AI quickly and reliably, while also helping them to achieve sustainability goals.” “The compute required for AI workloads has put a spotlight on performance, cost and energy efficiency as top concerns for enterprises today,” says Dr Devdatta Kulkarni, Principal Engineer and Lead Thermal Engineer on this project at Intel. “To support increasing thermal design power and heat flux for next-generation accelerators, Intel has worked with Vertiv and other ecosystem partners to enable an innovative cooling solution that will be critical in helping customers meet critical sustainability goals.”

Verne Global unveils liquid cooling at its data centre campus in Finland

Verne Global has announced the integration of liquid cooling technology with its data centre campus in Pori, Finland, known as The Rock. The surge in AI, machine learning and high-performance computing is amplifying the need for robust data centre cooling solutions. At a time when increasing energy efficiency is paramount for most data centre operators, the average data centre commits 40% of its energy consumption to cooling its infrastructure. The network demands of the AI models also require a significantly higher level of computational density, putting further strains on conventional air-cooling technologies. As a result, liquid cooling is quickly gaining traction in the market.    Recognising this pressing need for cooling innovation, Verne has collaborated closely with Dell Technologies and Intel to introduce direct liquid cooling (DLC) to The Rock campus in Finland. The deployment features DLC on Dell DLC3000 rack solutions with up to 80kW+ cooling capacity and 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors to maximise performance and cooling efficiency. Working with Dell and Intel enables reliable and efficient performance for the fastest growing AI workloads that businesses depend on today.

LiquidStack unveils single-phase immersion cooling offering

LiquidStack has announced its new single-phase liquid cooling solution. The announcement marks the first step in the company’s planned expansion of its DataTank product portfolio to offer a comprehensive range of advanced liquid cooling solutions. LiquidStack’s new single-phase liquid cooling solution provides data centres with a powerful and economical option to shift from air cooling to energy-efficient and sustainable immersion cooling. The product was unveiled by LiquidStack, CEO, Joe Capes, during a presentation at DCD Connect Virginia, and will be available for quotation and pre-order on 1 December, 2023. The final product name and additional product details will be announced on that date. “LiquidStack is unwavering in its ambition to support the future of AI and other high compute processing,” says Joe Capes, CEO, LiquidStack. “Since LiquidStack’s launch, our mission has always been to become a full service provider of the most advanced liquid cooling solutions in the market, and our new single-phase offering is a key step toward completing our liquid cooling technology stack.” LiquidStack’s single-phase liquid cooling technology delivers industry-leading efficiency and performs better than W32 thermal guidelines set forth by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers at >2.8kW/U, making it suitable for AI. Its advanced flow technology and flow dynamics significantly improve heat transfer, resulting in a higher performance of >110kW with W32 water. The solution offers superior efficiency compared to other leading single-phase liquid immersion products, which deliver less than 100kW per full size tank at similar conditions. In addition, it uses non-hazardous dielectric fluids and will be available at pricing of assured value, ensuring favourable total cost of ownership (TCO). Additional features and benefits include:  Server scalability: Occupies the exact footprint that holds four typical 19” or 21” racks, and is designed to enable data centres to easily retrofit existing white space and adopt liquid cooling. Flexible for most IT systems: Integrates multiple IT form factors, including 1U, 2U, 4U, 600mm, 750mm, OCP, ORV3 and more. Expandable resiliency: Offers an expandable N to 2N Tier IV redundancy system to ensure high resiliency and reliable operations. Easy deployment: Includes features that simplify installation and serviceability. Compatibility: Fits with LiquidStack modular data centre solutions as well as trane chillers and services.

Redefining liquid cooling from the server to the switch

By Nathan Blom, CCO, Iceotope Liquid cooling has long been a focal point in discussions surrounding data centres, and rightfully so, as these facilities are at the epicentre of an unprecedented data explosion. The explosive growth of the internet, cloud services, IoT devices, social media, and AI has fuelled an unparalleled surge in data generation, intensifying the strain on rack densities and placing substantial demands on data centre cooling systems. In fact, cooling power alone accounts for a staggering 40% of a data centre's total energy consumption. However, the need for efficient IT infrastructure cooling extends beyond data centres. Enterprise organisations are also looking for ways to reduce costs, maximise revenue and accelerate sustainability objectives. Not to mention the fact that reducing energy consumption is rapidly becoming one of the top priorities for telcos with thousands of sites in remote locations, making the reduction of maintenance costs key as well. Liquid cooling technologies have emerged as a highly efficient solution for dissipating heat from IT equipment, regardless of the setting. Whether it's within a data centre, on-premises data hall, cloud environment, or at the edge, liquid cooling is proving its versatility. While most applications have centred on cooling server components, new applications are rapidly materialising across the entire IT infrastructure spectrum. BT Group, in a ground-breaking move, initiated trials of liquid cooling technologies across its networks to enhance energy efficiency and reduce consumption as part of its commitment to achieving net zero status. BT kicked off the trials with a network switch cooled using Iceotope’s Precision Liquid Cooling technology and Juniper Networks QFX Series Switches. With 90% of its overall energy consumption coming from networks, it’s easy to see why reducing energy consumption is such a high priority. In a similar vein, Meta released a study last year confirming the practicality, efficiency and effectiveness of precision liquid cooling technology to meet the cooling requirements of high-density storage disks. Global data storage is growing at such a rate there is an increased need for improved thermal cooling solutions. Liquid cooling for high-density storage is proving to be a viable alternative as it can mitigate for variances and improve consistency. Ultimately, it lowers overall power consumption and improves ESG compliance. Liquid cooling technologies are changing the game when it comes to removing heat from the IT stack. While each of the technologies on the market today have their time and place, there is a reason we are seeing precision liquid cooling in trials that are broadening the use case for liquid cooling. It also ensures maximum efficiency and reliability as it uses a small amount of dielectric coolant to precisely target and remove heat from the hottest components of the server. This approach not only eliminates the need for traditional air-cooling systems, but it allows for greater flexibility in designing IT solutions than any other solution on the market today. There are no hotspots that can slow down performance, no wasted physical space on unnecessary cooling infrastructure, and minimal need for water consumption. As the demand for data increases, the importance of efficient and sustainable IT infrastructure cooling cannot be overstated. Liquid cooling, and precision liquid cooling in particular, is at the forefront of this journey. Whether it's reducing the environmental footprint of data centres, enhancing the energy efficiency of telecommunication networks, or meeting the ever-increasing demands of high-density storage, liquid cooling offers versatile and effective solutions. These trials and applications are not just milestones, they represent a pivotal shift toward a future where cooling is smarter, greener, and more adaptable, empowering businesses to meet their evolving IT demands while contributing to a more sustainable world.

Vertiv enhances manufacturing capacity for chilled water solutions

Vertiv has unveiled an upgraded testing room at its thermal management centre near Tognana, Italy. This sizeable investment significantly increases the facility’s testing capacity and manufacturing capabilities in the existing space and demonstrates its ongoing commitment to the advancement of chilled water systems to help drive liquid cooling adoption. It also shows the company’s support of increasing demands on data centres, including high-performance computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI). The upgraded testing room will allow Vertiv to do standard and tailored tests of customer equipment, spanning all of the cooling solutions in its product portfolio - both air and water-cooled, balancing a thermal load greater than 2MW with a chamber air temperature up to 55°C. Moreover, it will also be able to test units equipped with low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants. This upgrade comes at a critical time for the data centre industry. Operators are expanding rapidly to meet increasing capacity needs, whilst at the same time seeking to minimise their environmental impact. More than 100 European data centre operators and trade associations have signed The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact committing to climate neutrality by 2030. Chilled water systems play a key role in helping to reach this goal by enabling operators to upscale data centre capacity whilst simultaneously limiting direct and indirect emissions. These systems apply low-GWP refrigerants that enable significant reduction of direct and indirect CO2 emissions, decreasing a data centre’s carbon footprint. “Resource-efficient chilled water solutions are important to the sustainable growth of the data centre industry, and we must continue to focus on how we can evolve and improve the technologies for operators and the environment,” says Karsten Winther, President EMEA at Vertiv. “We are proud of the market-leading work we have achieved for our customers. For example, we worked with sustainability focused colocation provider, Green Mountain, to deploy 5MW of high-efficiency chilled water cooling systems. Enhancing the testing and manufacturing capacity at our thermal management facility allows us to continue to innovate in this space and deliver even more value to the industry and our customers.” “In December, we will introduce our new Vertiv Liebert AFC high capacity, inverter screw with low-GWP refrigerant chiller up to 2200kW to the EMEA market. This new testing room will enable us to test these larger capacity units,” says Roberto Felisi, Senior Director, Thermal Global Core Offering and EMEA Business Leader at Vertiv. “We continue to explore opportunities to further invest in our capabilities to support projected growth and demand for thermal management systems, particularly liquid cooling solutions.” To celebrate the latest expansion, Vertiv welcomed employees’ families for a special visit to the facility, including the Thermal Management Customer Experience Centre. The open day featured activities designed specifically to engage children and young people, offering insights into data centres and the significance of thermal management. Highlights included guided tours of production lines and primary laboratories, as well as Vertiv’s own data centre which provided a first-hand look at the machines in action. Depending on age, the young visitors could partake in thermodynamics workshops and explore topics such as cold generation and the behaviour of hot and cold air particles. They also got the chance to experience Vertiv’s cutting-edge augmented reality applications, like the Vertiv XR app, and navigate a virtual data centre. Click here for more latest news.

B­­T takes the plunge with new liquid cooling trials

BT Group has announced that it is trialling several liquid cooling technologies that could substantially improve energy consumption and efficiency metrics in its networks and IT infrastructure, in pursuit of its commitment to becoming a net zero business by the end of March 2031. The group will trial precision liquid cooled network switches using a solution provided by Iceotope and Juniper Networks QFX Series switches, which are widely used in existing network cloud architectures. Ahead of the trial, they have together demonstrated a replica ‘set-up’ using an HP x86 server at BT’s Sustainability Festival. The demonstration showed how power used to cool a network switch typically deployed in a data centre could be significantly reduced. All electronic and electrical systems generate heat during operation that must be dissipated to maintain working capability. Like most large data centres, network and IT equipment across its estate is currently cooled using air-based systems. As network capacity and demands increase, next generation IT and network hardware will have to work harder and will become hotter. Consequently, the power needed to cool them will increase, driving up energy consumption and operational cost. BT Group is, therefore, exploring numerous alternative cooling techniques and in addition to its trial with Iceotope and Juniper, the company will trial the following liquid cooling systems. Precision liquid cooled networking servers and data centre equipment, with Iceotope and Juniper Full immersion of networking servers in an immersion tank, with Immersion4 Liquid-cooled cold plates of networking equipment in a cooling enclosure, with Nexalus Cooling using sprayed-on partial immersion of data centre equipment, with Airsys. Typically, these techniques bring several benefits including a 40-50% reduction in power needed to cool systems vs air cooling, higher equipment density saving on real estate footprint and therefore further power usage reductions, and reduced material usage-reducing carbon footprint. Further, rather than heat dissipated into the air, liquid cooling systems can channel exhausted heat to be reused to heat other parts of a building. Liquid cooling enabling equipment can also be deployed in more environmentally challenging environments such as areas with more contaminants. Maria Cuevas, Networks Research Director, BT Group, says, “As the UK’s largest provider of fixed-line broadband and mobile services in the UK, it isn’t a surprise that over 90% of our overall energy consumption – and nearly 95% of our electricity - comes from our networks. In a world of advancing technology and growing data demands, it’s critical that we continue to innovate for energy efficiency solutions. Liquid cooling for network and IT infrastructure is one part of a much bigger jigsaw but is an area we’re very excited to explore with our technology partners.”