High-Efficiency Liquid Cooling Solution For Data Center

In the Internet age, people's huge demand for services such as video, mail, online banking, shopping, and travel has finally flooded into millions of data centers all over the world. Although it cannot be felt at close range, the congestion and heat accumulation in the cloud computer room is still a contradiction that is difficult to reconcile. To this end, Iceotope proposed a set of mitigation solutions-by immersing the computing hardware in a non-conductive liquid, keeping the processor at a relatively low 50°C (122°F) to replace the expensive and energy-consuming air conditioning cooling solution.

David Craig, CEO of Iceotope, a British start-up that focuses on the computing cooling market, pointed out: "As we process more and more data, the temperature of the chip will increase by 3-5 times."

Rabin Bashroush, head of global IT consulting services at Uptime Institute, a Seattle consulting firm, also said: Data centers consume 2 to 4% of the world's electricity consumption, and almost half of them are spent on cooling.

In the early days, most of the data was stored in locally generated banks, universities, or companies. As long as you pay attention to ventilation, you can get a good temperature improvement.

Nowadays, more and more data is integrated into large hubs with thousands of processors, and these data centers often use traditional air conditioners to assist in heat dissipation.

Although a suitable temperature helps to maintain the stability of the system, overheating may cause the system to crash. In addition, with each generation of computer chips running faster and hotter, even the most efficient air conditioner is difficult to easily suppress.

If a better way to lower the temperature can be found, the industry can save about 10 billion U.S. dollars each year in terms of electricity expenditure alone. After all, air is not a very effective heat transfer medium.

Data from Allied Market Research shows that as early as 2019, the market size for cooling computer equipment reached 10.5 billion U.S. dollars, and maintained a growth rate of 13% every year. This has triggered start-ups including Iceotope, as well as facial expressions. Fierce competition among technology giants such as Books, Google, and Microsoft.

One of the current hot spots in data centers is to use pipeline-based liquid cooling technology, combined with specially formulated recirculating fluids, to immerse the processor in water, or even build a data center directly on the seabed (such as Microsoft).

The market research firm PitchBook reports that last year's venture capital for data center cooling startups more than doubled to $34 million.

Arman Shehabi, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LLNL), who is dedicated to research on computer power consumption, also said: "The liquid cooling solution can provide services for denser computing power in a smaller space."

It is reported that Microsoft, which operates more than 200 data centers around the world, is also testing a system solution that directly immerses servers in non-conductive fluid. It is estimated that the liquid cooling solution can make it 10 times the computing power in the same space.

Christian Belady, head of the data center development department, said: "Although we have just embarked on the road of liquid cold plate, you will see many rapid changes in our approach."

Bloomberg reported that at least a dozen smaller start-ups have joined the market competition in this area. For example, the sealed system solution sold by Spain's Submer Technologies SL company immersed the server in a non-conductive liquid container and can directly connect to the network.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to preventing dust and prolonging the service life of computers, the waste heat generated by data center servers can also be used to heat nearby buildings. Incooling BV, headquartered in the Netherlands, uses an efficient heat dissipation solution that boils the fluid to form a gas, and then recirculates it after cooling.