How to deal with high densities and their thermal impact
Liquid cooling (LC) is an increasingly popular option.
The accelerated advance of digitization in all aspects of life, from commerce and banking to education and healthcare, has led to an increase in demand for data processing and storage capacity in Latin America.
In 2023, the data storage market in the region was expected to reach a value of approximately US$7.32 billion, according to EMR's report, and the market is estimated to grow at a compound annual rate of 12.8% between 2024 and 2032, to reach US$21.63 billion in the latter year.
This expansion demands challenges for data center infrastructure, especially to support user demands in technologies such as the internet of things, streaming video or artificial intelligence, which implies the adoption of high performance computing (HPC) and more efficient infrastructure systems to power and cool the large amount of data and heat they generate.
How to deal with high densities and their thermal impact
Faced with this situation, the question is, how can data centers cope with the wave of demand generated by artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, which will increase computing densities and their thermal impact? The answer lies in adoption of liquid cooling at the rack or chip in addition to traditional air-based cooling for the data center.
At Vertiv we have identified several benefits of liquid cooling:
- Sustainability: Liquid cooling more effectively reduces heat at the rack and chip, improves efficiency (PUE) and may even allow reuse of the heat generated.
- Improved energy savings: Liquid cooling targeted at the source of the heat is more cost effective than cooling the rack and space only with traditional air cooled systems.
- Lower cost of ownership: Can improve total cost of ownership through very high efficiency in the cooling or heat removal system, despite the higher density.
- Space utilization: Liquid-cooled doors installed on the back of high density racks in existing data centers allow cooling of the equipment without costly expansions or new construction. Direct to chip cooling applications in new construction allow further optimized use of space.
Liquid cooling direct to chip
One of the most efficient methods of liquid cooling (LC) is the direct to chip (DTC) method, which consists of placing cold plates directly on the processors or chips that generate the most heat within IT equipment, removing heat efficiently.
This type of cooling offers significantly higher efficiency compared to conventional air cooling systems. For example, estimates show that this DTC method can remove between 70 to 80% of the heat generated by servers and accelerators. The remaining heat can be effectively removed with traditional data center air cooled systems. This combined method allows data centers to operate with more intense and demanding workloads without compromising performance or reliability.
These advantages make DTC attractive to data center operators to meet the cooling needs of high-density workloads in the era of AI and big data.
In that sense, Direct to Chip liquid cooling not only offers greater energy efficiency and better performance, but also contributes to long-term sustainability goals through lower carbon emissions. At Vertiv we have the Liebert® XDU solution that offers solutions with liquid available to be distributed in high density racks from 70KW to 1350KW of nominal cooling capacity per Cooling Distribution Unit (CDU), the latter in a single unit of reduced footprint (0.9 x 1.2 m).
In addition to liquid-liquid XDUs, liquid-air CDUs are also available. Learn more about our portfolio on this and other liquid cooling and high density solutions here.
