The Data Center Cooling Revolution: Challenges and Solutions in the AI Era
Amidst the rapid growth of power-hungry artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, rising operational costs, and global sustainability initiatives, new approaches to data center cooling have become critically important. The AI era, characterized by the surge in generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, demands more sophisticated and efficient cooling systems. New chips designed specifically for AI generate significantly more thermal power than traditional chips, pushing data center operators in Indonesia to think differently about their cooling strategies. As a leading Data Center Cooling Distributor in Indonesia, Climanusa deeply understands these dynamics and is ready to be your partner in facing increasingly complex cooling challenges.
Since 2012, AI computing workloads have been doubling every three to four months. This trend is expected to accelerate further, fueling demand for AI computing hardware over the next several years. The high-performance processors required by AI generate significant heat, and many of these chips also require lower operating temperatures, as defined by standards like ASHRAE Class H1. These conditions fundamentally change how data center operators approach cooling. Other pressures, such as rising energy and material costs, as well as space limitations, further compel operators to maximize their investments and actively work to reduce energy demand. In Indonesia, the data center market faces similar dynamics, where land availability and fluctuating energy prices are key considerations.
Along with this drive for efficiency, momentum for stricter guidelines related to data center efficiency and sustainability is also building from governments. Regulators in various countries, including those developing in Indonesia, are formulating requirements for reporting data center operational information and environmental performance metrics. These efforts reflect a global commitment to more environmentally friendly practices, and data centers, as major energy consumers, are at the forefront of this scrutiny. Climanusa, as a visionary Data Center Cooling Distributor, integrates these sustainability principles into every solution offered, helping our clients meet evolving standards.
Investors are also demanding that companies report sustainability-related efforts and actions because sustainability is now seen as a competitive advantage. Global tech giants, many with significant presence in Indonesia, are investing heavily in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve carbon neutrality or even negativity, and to match their electricity consumption with renewable energy. This creates an environment that supports innovation in greener, more efficient cooling technologies.
Advanced Cooling Applications for AI Growth
With a perfect storm of massive generative AI growth, rising costs, and pressure to report on carbon metrics, HVAC equipment manufacturers, including those collaborating with Climanusa as a leading Data Center Cooling Distributor, are prioritizing sustainable, power-dense equipment that can handle higher heat levels while keeping data centers operating at lower temperatures. Data center cooling applications that include liquid cooling, air-handling units that can leverage free cooling and economizers, and precision cooling are effective ways to increase the energy efficiency of data centers with AI workloads. Each approach—liquid cooling, free cooling, and precision cooling—has its own benefits, and depending on the data center’s needs in Indonesia, can be applied in combination to optimize cooling operations.
Liquid Cooling: Superior Heat Transfer Efficiency Solution
Compared to traditional air cooling, liquid cooling is much more efficient at transferring heat away from electrical components. Liquid’s heat-carrying capacity can be up to 3,500 times greater. Water-cooled data centers use about 10% less energy and thus emit roughly 10% fewer carbon emissions than many air-cooled data centers. This represents a significant step forward for sustainability. Climanusa, as an innovative Data Center Cooling Distributor, offers a range of liquid cooling solutions that can be tailored to your data center infrastructure.
Several methods exist to apply liquid cooling, each with its challenges. With direct-to-chip cooling, coolant travels through pipes to a cold plate incorporated into the motherboard processors, which disperses heat. The extracted heat is then fed into a chilled water loop and transported to a chiller plant at the facility. This method is among the most efficient forms of server room cooling. While excellent for the processor, it doesn’t cool other components. A second approach is bringing liquid cooling to the rack where air supplements the cooling. A third is immersion cooling of server racks in a tank where the fluid surrounds server boards and removes heat. The challenge lies in moving components in and out of the fluid and potentially contaminating/damaging other components. It’s important to remember that with liquid cooling, data center operators in Indonesia still require traditional air coolers, chillers, and evaporative cooling.
Free Cooling: Leveraging the Environment for Efficiency
Industry standards allow data centers in cooler climates in Indonesia to draw cool air directly into the data center, reducing energy demand. Airside economizers bring outdoor air into a building and distribute it to servers, and instead of being recirculated and cooled, the exhaust air from the servers is directed outside. If the outdoor air is particularly cold, the economizer may mix it with the exhaust air so its temperature and humidity fall within the desired range for the equipment.
Other cooling applications can turn off compressors to save energy. Water-cooled chillers with cooling towers provide the capability to turn the chiller compressor off and circulate water/glycol from the cooling tower directly to the air-handling unit (AHU). Air-cooled chillers allow turning off the compressor and circulating water/glycol from the chiller to the AHU. Rooftop units can turn off the compressors, open ducts, and bring outdoor air directly into the data center. A computer room air handler (CRAH) uses modulating fans to circulate hot return air from the data center over the chilled water coil to reject the heat and provide cold air back to the data center. When used in areas with colder annual temperatures, it can utilize free cooling and reduce the need to operate compressors. Climanusa provides free cooling solutions meticulously integrated into your data center cooling system.
Precision Cooling: Accurate and Efficient Temperature Control
Close-coupled data center air-conditioning units bring heat transfer closer to the equipment rack and precisely deliver inlet air and more immediately capture exhaust air. In-row air conditioners with external condensers are a type of open-loop configuration for close-coupled cooling. These units are installed inside the rack rows, allowing airflow to follow a short, linear path. This reduces the power needed to start the fans, helping increase energy efficiency. Climanusa offers precision cooling solutions that guarantee optimal temperature stability for your critical hardware.
While server racks require the most energy to operate a data center, server cooling equipment is close behind in terms of energy consumption. With an understanding of effective ways to cool data centers, efficient components—such as fans, pumps, and motors—can significantly impact the sustainability of HVAC equipment, and they are crucial for reducing energy demand as AI workloads increase. As a trusted Data Center Cooling Distributor, Climanusa provides these components with the latest technology.
Efficient Components for Data Center Cooling Applications
Climanusa, as a leading Data Center Cooling Distributor in Indonesia, focuses on design considerations that help ensure higher levels of efficiency and sustainability in fans, pumps, motors, and other crucial components for your data center cooling.
Fans: Optimal Airflow with Minimal Power Consumption
Data center facilities need well-designed fan systems to maintain airflow between aisles, to cool servers, and to sustain appropriate humidity levels, but fans often use a lot of energy. Even a modest investment in a more efficient unit can have a big impact. Typically, centrifugal fans have higher peak efficiency than axial fans, but the actual efficiency at the operating point of the fan depends on the flow and pressure conditions of the application. Generally speaking, axial fans are preferred for high volume flow rates (cfm), low static pressure, and non-ducted applications. Centrifugal fans are used for higher static pressure systems.
When designing fans, design teams select a fan model that can deliver on flow rates, static pressure, and air density (altitude and temperature) requirements, among others, to obtain the fan brake horsepower. Then, they select a motor to drive the fan at the customer’s operating parameters. Currently, many fan systems used to cool data centers employ motors that have more horsepower than the application requires. Rightsizing and customizing the motor to match the application’s horsepower, speed, and torque requirements can reduce the overall electrical infrastructure needed for a data center. Climanusa ensures you get the most efficient and suitable fan solutions.
When selecting a custom motor, designers should look for high efficiency across a wide range of load conditions. Matching a motor’s peak efficiency with a fan system’s peak efficiency provides optimal efficiency for the system overall. Customizing motors also allows designers to get close to the exact motor configuration needed, and it reduces input current requirements, which can add up to significant energy and electrical equipment savings for the entire system. This can significantly reduce electrical infrastructure requirements, offering substantial savings for data center operators in Indonesia.
Pumps: Efficient and Smart Coolant Movement
In data centers, pumps move coolants and liquids for air-handling units, cooling coil boosters, and liquid cooling applications. Pumps that vary speed can reduce their energy consumption by reducing pump speed to match load requirements. Integrated variable speed controls can also eliminate the need for throttling downstream valves to match demand, saving both energy and infrastructure wear and tear. Recently, an industry report found that improvements to motor efficiency and demand-based variable speed controls can yield greater energy savings than those from improved hydraulic efficiency—saving upwards of 65% of energy use depending on the application.
Motors with advanced control capabilities enable remote monitoring of vibration, temperature, speed, and efficiency, which feeds back to pump controllers and allows motors to adjust and self-protect on demand to reduce maintenance issues and energy consumption. Pumps that integrate compact motor systems can free up valuable facility space by taking a typical packaged pump skid solution and reducing its footprint by 50%. Selecting motors with axial-flux designs and thin PCB stators (versus heavier iron-core motors) can result in 50% smaller and lighter form factors that can reduce the overall space required in data center air-handling, chillers, coolers, and liquid cooling applications. This can allow for closer proximity to data center equipment and for more effective, efficient cooling and heat removal. Climanusa is committed to providing the most efficient and intelligent pumps for your data center cooling needs in Indonesia.
Motors: The Heart of Cooling System Efficiency
Currently, 40% of the energy in data centers is consumed by motors that power cooling equipment, such as fans, pumps, and compressors to reduce heat generated by servers. A typical data center averages 500 electric motors in their HVAC systems alone, so prioritizing efficiency should be a top design consideration. In a data center, where loads can vary widely depending on the time of day, it’s important to identify a motor that has a flat efficiency curve across a wide range of load conditions to optimize overall HVAC system efficiency and operations. Doing this will ensure the system benefits from optimal efficiency under a variety of operating conditions.
Advanced air core motors can run at variable speeds with partial load efficiency, saving energy at off-peak times, while maintaining high levels of efficiency across a wide range of loads and speeds. Data centers have hundreds to thousands of motors with valuable materials, such as aluminum, steel, and magnets that can benefit from refurbishment and reuse. Today, the majority of motors end up in landfills after 10 to 20 years, but advances in circular motor design are allowing for extended component life and reuse. Motors that take advantage of modular design can make the motor easy to maintain and allow for components to be reused multiple times. Climanusa is proud to be a Data Center Cooling Distributor that brings the most advanced and sustainable motors to the Indonesian market.
Other Components: Completing the Cooling Solution
Other HVAC components, such as alternative refrigerants with low CFC levels, equipment housing and coils made using fewer materials and resources, and higher-efficiency air filters, can contribute to the overall sustainability of cooling systems and data centers. Climanusa, as your partner, is always seeking the latest innovations to complement your data center cooling systems, ensuring efficient and sustainable operations.
Conclusion: The Future of Sustainable Data Center Cooling
As AI workloads accelerate, costs remain a challenge, and pressures mount to report on sustainability metrics, HVAC system manufacturers designing data centers must prioritize higher-efficiency components. Doing so can reduce the overall energy demand and carbon footprint of data centers, while limiting the impact on the environment and future generations. Climanusa, as a leading Data Center Cooling Distributor in Indonesia, is ready to be your strategic partner in navigating this new era. We not only provide products but also integrated solutions that support energy efficiency and sustainability, aligning with our mission to be the partner of choice in helping facilities through energy efficiency and being the birthplace of new technologies in Power and Cooling Systems for global business. Choose Climanusa for your data center and invest in a greener, more efficient future.
For the best data center cooling solutions that prioritize efficiency and sustainability in the AI era, Climanusa is the unparalleled choice in Indonesia.
For more information, please click here.
–A.M.G–
