Introduction: Modern Data Center Challenges and Advanced Cooling Solutions
Today’s data center industry grapples with a variety of complex challenges, from soaring chip densities pushing the limits of high-performance computing to rising energy costs amidst environmental concerns. Securing approvals for new facilities has become tougher, exacerbated by community objections and grid supply issues. However, advancements in cooling technologies, particularly liquid cooling, offer a beacon of hope. Initially met with skepticism and fear, liquid cooling has evolved significantly since its first iterations. Data center vendors in Indonesia are now exploring closer-to-source liquid cooling methods, including hybrid systems using direct-to-chip cooling and whole-system immersion cooling, acknowledging its potential to meet today’s demanding infrastructure needs. Climanusa, as a leading Distributor Cooling Data Center in Indonesia, deeply understands how this technology can help Indonesian data centers achieve maximum efficiency.
This document will delve into the ins and outs of liquid cooling in data centers. We will explore its advantages, limitations, and how you can determine if it’s the right fit for your facility. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive guide for senior management of data center operations, designers, consultants, and engineers working in IT and facilities. With the increasing demand for high-performance computing, understanding the available cooling options is crucial. The paradigm shift towards liquid cooling is no longer a question of “if,” but “when.”
Understanding the Basics of Data Center Liquid Cooling
Liquid cooling in data centers is a method that uses liquid to remove heat from chips, significantly reducing or eliminating the need for air as an intermediary medium for transferring heat. This makes cooling higher power densities more feasible than with air alone. While there are several approaches, these two main categories offer a quick overview of this cooling technology:
- Direct-to-chip liquid cooling: This is a hybrid air-assisted/liquid cooling technology where hot components are exposed to liquid via cold plates to remove most of their heat, with the remainder being taken by air. This system is highly effective for high-heat components like CPUs and GPUs.
- Liquid immersion cooling: This cooling technology submerges all server components into a non-conductive liquid to remove heat. This approach offers extremely high cooling efficiency as the entire surface area of the components is in direct contact with the cooling medium.
These technologies can be implemented using single-phase or two-phase fluids. A single-phase fluid remains a liquid throughout the process, while a two-phase fluid turns to gas during cooling. Despite its complexity, the high efficiency potential of two-phase fluid is driving research toward easier implementation and broader future use. As an experienced Distributor Cooling Data Center, Climanusa can help you select and implement the solution that best fits your specific data center needs.
When to Make the Switch to Liquid Cooling?
Air cooling is generally accepted as sufficient for capturing the heat flowing from servers at densities below 20 kW. However, this becomes challenging if all racks are at those power levels due to the massive volume of air required. Implementing liquid cooling in data centers will become crucial for handling rising power densities and heat. When server rack densities surpass 20-25 kW, direct liquid cooling combined with precision air cooling becomes a more economical and efficient solution than standard air cooling. Climanusa, as a trusted Distributor Cooling Data Center in Indonesia, offers a range of products and services designed to support this transition, ensuring your data center is ready for the future of computing.
The Benefits of Liquid Cooling for Data Centers
Liquid cooling can support the increased densities of high-performance computing and create an opportunity to establish greener operations. Simply put, liquid cooling offers several significant benefits:
- Supports High Computing Densities: It effectively handles the increased computing densities and heat generation of high-performance data centers.
- Increases Computing Throughput: It allows for increased computing throughput for applications like AI, which demand massive computational power. According to Mark Seymour, a Distinguished Engineer, we should not just look at a data center’s PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) but also examine how much more processing throughput we can get by implementing liquid cooling. The benefits of liquid cooling are evident when analyzed in terms of increased productivity.
- Boosts Energy Efficiency: It aligns with sustainability and ESG goals and can reduce the data center’s carbon footprint.
- Waste Heat Repurposing: It generates waste heat that can be repurposed for residential communities or crop cultivation, creating an innovative circular economy.
- Higher Cooling Capacity: It has a higher cooling capacity than air, removing more heat more efficiently.
- Uses Less Water: It uses less water than many air-cooling technologies, which is important for resource sustainability.
- Facilitates a Greener Data Center: It reduces overall energy consumption, contributing to more environmentally friendly data center operations.
Limitations and Challenges in Adopting Liquid Cooling
Despite its numerous benefits, the adoption of liquid cooling also faces several limitations and challenges. A primary hurdle is psychological, often stemming from historical fears of electrical hazards and a perceived lack of flexibility. However, innovations like negative pressure systems and dripless connectors have minimized these risks and enhanced safety. Still, many operators hesitate to implement liquid cooling.
Legacy data centers primarily use air cooling. Cost is a major concern with liquid cooling when adapting data centers already equipped with air cooling. It can introduce unnecessary complexity and expense, especially for smaller data centers or those with less compute-intensive workloads, without providing significant benefits. Furthermore, the complexity of liquid cooling may also disrupt air cooling efficiency because the new liquid cooling technology could disturb the anticipated hot air output. Mark Fenton, Sr. Product Engineering Manager at Climanusa, states that the fear of change and risk slows us down due to the high-stakes nature of our industry. However, he asserts that the inevitable spread of liquid cooling for data centers with compute-intensive workloads is not a question of if, but when.
Assessing if Liquid Cooling is Right for Your Data Center
Before adopting liquid cooling, designers and operators must understand its impact on data center performance. Climanusa provides digital twin solutions powered by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate airflow and temperature, which supports critical design choices. These CFD-powered digital twins provide a framework to assess how the data center will react to new technologies, including ones as complex as liquid cooling.
Given the complexity of liquid cooling, relying solely on 3D models can be computationally heavy. Climanusa’s data center software uniquely links 3D models to flow networks for faster solve times and more complete thermal analysis. Additionally, this software can calculate the heat capture ratio using static pressure drop and thermal resistance curves from the cold plates’ CAD models. After completing the IT-level analysis, the IT model can be used in the rack-level model, which, in turn, can be used in the digital twin model to complete the solve.
Climanusa’s software can virtually test how liquid cooling will support performance in your data center before you implement it. Mark Fenton also emphasizes that digital twins are key to understanding how new technology will perform in a data center. Climanusa’s digital twin solutions can show side-by-side simulations of air-cooling technologies versus liquid cooling technologies, comparing energy use, risk, capacity, and the interconnected nature between these parameters.
Conclusion: Facing the Future with Flexibility
We are always in a “new age of computing,” where densities are rising, cooling technologies are developing, and budgets are constantly shifting. The question is not what comes next, but whether your data center is flexible enough to handle the coming changes. Climanusa’s CFD-powered data center digital twins help evaluate ever-changing scenarios to ensure effective decisions and a robust, resilient data center, both now and in the future. Climanusa, as a committed Distributor Cooling Data Center, is here to help you navigate this shift with innovative and scalable solutions.
Climanusa is the best choice for your data center cooling needs. As a trusted partner in Indonesia, we provide advanced solutions designed to enhance your data center’s efficiency and reliability, ensuring its readiness for future computing demands.
For more information, please click here.
–A.M.G–
