Excessive-density knowledge facilities with high-performing GPUs are altering how the world works by unleashing the facility of AI. They’re additionally unleashing one thing else – large quantities of warmth. The one strategy to cool the power-hungry GPU racks in these knowledge facilities is with liquid. However deploying liquid cooling methods might first require addressing considerations that CFOs and board members have in regards to the expertise.
The liquid cooling methods wanted for high-density knowledge facilities have increased upfront prices than the air-cooling methods utilized in conventional knowledge facilities. There are additionally worries about water utilization, with the biggest knowledge facilities able to consuming thousands and thousands of gallons of water per day. And for some, the concept of bringing liquid into the white area could be counterintuitive and dangerous after attempting to maintain it out for many years.
Facility operations groups can put these considerations to relaxation by making a enterprise case for liquid cooling that communicates the need of liquid cooling and incorporates the worth of design finest practices.
Establishing the Want for Liquid Cooling
Some leaders assume that the higher-performing GPU racks used for AI workloads can merely be dropped into a standard knowledge heart infrastructure. However the air cooling methods utilized in conventional knowledge facilities wrestle to maintain up when energy density exceeds 15-20 kW per rack. Liquid, alternatively, has 15-25 times the thermal conductivity of air.
Put merely, for a high-density knowledge heart to operate reliably, it requires an equally sturdy liquid cooling resolution. That resolution could be closed loop to attenuate water loss utilizing one among three design approaches:
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Direct-to-chip cooling places water on a warmth sink or cooling plate throughout the IT gear to take away warmth.
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Rear-door warmth exchangers seize scorching air from IT gear on a coil – earlier than that scorching air enters the white area – after which transfers the warmth to water.
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Immersion cooling submerges IT methods in a non-conductive liquid coolant to soak up their warmth after which makes use of a warmth exchanger to switch away that warmth.
No matter design strategy is used, it ought to be engineered together with the GPU infrastructure to assist be sure it’s constructed to ship the correct cooling efficiency. Simply as essential as understanding how a lot energy a GPU goes to devour, as an illustration, is to know the way a lot cooling it’s going to devour. Superior planning may assist uncover essential points early, like if a constructing has the present chilled water capability to assist a liquid cooling system.
The True Value of Knowledge Heart Liquid Cooling
If leaders solely take into account the CapEx influence of a liquid cooling system, they’re lacking the larger image. Liquid cooling can ship OpEx financial savings that may probably recoup the CapEx funding in lower than two years.
For example, the facility utilized by a pair of cooling distribution models to flow into water is a fraction of how a lot power a fan wall would devour to chill the area. Liquid cooling methods additionally function inside a extra focused footprint, cooling solely the areas of the IT infrastructure the place warmth is generated quite than the whole room. And for each one-degree improve in room temperature, knowledge facilities can understand a 1-2% power financial savings.
If liquid cooling methods should be deployed at a number of knowledge facilities, a vendor-neutral foundation of design may present financial savings. This entails making a standardized design that delivers comparable efficiency traits throughout a wide range of places whereas minimizing rework for every deployment. It additionally matches the correct vendor applied sciences to a knowledge heart’s environmental and working wants quite than forcing particular vendor applied sciences onto the information heart.
Uncovering Alternatives to Simplify
Liquid cooling methods don’t should be a burden on a corporation. Throughout the life of those methods, there are alternatives to ease their deployment, use, and upkeep – all of which decrease calls for on employees.
For starters, a companion who’s skilled in deploying liquid cooling applied sciences may help firms with every thing from assessing their facility infrastructure to planning and designing a tailor-made liquid cooling system to sourcing and supplying applied sciences. That very same companion may tackle key duties to simplify the deployment, like holding pre-purchased parts so that they don’t sit idle at an organization’s knowledge heart, the place they might be broken or stolen.
Knowledge from a liquid cooling system will also be built-in in a method that finest serves the folks answerable for monitoring and sustaining it. If that’s the power operations group, for instance, the information could be built-in into their constructing administration or automation system. This could permit the group to simply preserve an eye fixed the liquid cooling system like they do another constructing system.
Warming As much as Liquid Cooling
By establishing the necessity for liquid cooling and showcasing the financial savings and efficiencies it could possibly ship, knowledge heart groups can create a compelling case for liquid cooling and defend their high-value, energy-intensive GPU racks for years to return with one of the best out there expertise.
