Direct Contact Liquid Cooling Continues its Move into the Data Center

June 29, 2015

In the world of HPC, continuous improvements in performance are key to keeping up with today’s demanding workloads. But it’s hard to realize the true potential of your IT infrastructure when your datacenter is running out of cooling capacity. Space and power density problems limit your ability to pack more compute into smaller spaces and make better use of your existing data center real estate.

Solutions based on air cooling reflect those limitations. The conventional approach to data center cooling relies on fans and bulky, expensive air conditioning and air handling systems. This approach causes power density problems – particularly for academic and research-based organizations with smaller data centers. Traditional air solutions are often not capable of providing adequate cooling to the servers.

Adding more compute power to handle increasingly larger and more complex workloads means adding more cooling – but the rack space just isn’t available. Complicating matters is the fact that traditional data centers rely on chiller-based air systems that can consume 50% of all data center power.

A Different Approach

CoolIT Systems provides a simple and cost effective alternative to data center cooling.

Direct Contact Liquid Cooling (DCLC) uses the exceptional thermal conductivity of liquid to provide dense, concentrated cooling to specific surface areas. Liquid is several orders of magnitude more efficient than air at storing and transferring heat, allowing the data center’s reliance on expensive air conditioning and fans to be significantly reduced. DCLC enables more than 45kW densities per rack using warm water cooling. This not only reduces power use, but also helps boost the processing power of the data center’s compute platforms.

“There are a variety of liquid cooling solutions in the marketplace today, but many of them, including immersion systems, require major modifications to the IT infrastructure,” says Geoff Lyon, CoolIT CEO and CTO. “The Direct Contact approach is better for retrofitting with existing infrastructure and greenfield opportunities.

“What we offer is quite simple,” he continues. “Our DCLC system uses relatively small tubes that bring cool water into the server, gather the heat from high density sources, and remove it from the data center. We don’t need fans to grab the heat and air conditioning to suck the heat out of that airflow. Instead we transport the thermal energy outside the data center where it is often used opportunistically – everything from melting ice under sidewalks to space heating rooms.”

Liquid Cooled Servers - CoolIT

CoolIT’s Rack DCLC is based on three modules – a server module, manifold module and a heat exchanger. The server module can cool any combination of CPU, GPU and memory components with customization available for VR, ASIC and other devices. The manifold module exchanges liquid between the heat exchange module and the server modules. The server module includes specially designed dry break quick disconnects allowing all servers to be hot swappable. And finally, the heat exchanger modules come in either liquid-to-liquid or liquid-to-air configurations.

DCLC in Action

A typical Rack DCLC deployment was announced in May 2015 at the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Warsaw, Poland. The PSNC solution combines blade servers with the DCLC processor and memory cooling modules to remove 80% of the server heat via the liquid loop.

In June of this year, at the Center for Biological Sequence Analysis (CBS) at the Technical University of Denmark, a Rack DCLC system replaced its traditional air cooling for the university’s Top500 HPC system known as Computerome. Not only is the DCLC solution cooling the data center, but also waste heat in the form of high temperature liquid is being used to heat adjacent buildings and the nearby town of Roskilde.

DCLC Benefits

DCLC reduces the reliance on expensive, space consuming air cooling systems and delivers a rapid ROI. The CoolIT solution requires less data center equipment – such as racks and switches – lowering overall CAPEX. Customers typically experience a 25%-30% decrease in OPEX.

Rack DCLC is high compatible with today’s IT ecosystems making the solution easy to install, maintain and service. The CBS installation, mentioned above, was completed in a few days.

DCLC also facilitates peak performance for higher power or overclocked processors, while providing a significant reduction in total data center energy consumed. The system achieves densities of 45kW or greater per rack.

In short, DCLC all but eliminates the need for air cooling, frees up space in the data center, and accelerates HPC processing power.

CoolIT Systems CEO Lyon notes that air conditioning is not going to go away, but will play less of a role in the data center as liquid cooling becomes dominant. Today’s and tomorrow’s data centers will adopt innovative hybrid solutions, combining DCLC with other technologies such as rear door heat exchangers (RDHx), which also use liquid cooling.

Much of that innovation will be provided by CoolIT, drawing on its more than 14 years experience inventing and designing liquid cooling technology. The company has more than two million liquid cooling units deployed in data centers, servers, and desktop computers around the world.

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire