Iceotope’s chassis-scale cooling system Ku:l solution was demonstrated on the Intel booth at HPE Discover 2022, the edge-to-cloud conference held last week. It is the product of a close collaboration between Iceotope, Intel and HPE and promises to achieve zero-carbon operations faster by reducing edge and data center energy use by nearly one-third.
Liquid cooling has historically been used only in arcane, high-performance computing applications. Now it is increasingly regarded as a key technology for reliable and efficient operation at any location and under any IT load. Because with the proliferation of distributed edge computing application scenarios, in order to meet the data processing needs closer to the point of use, as well as the power of artificial intelligence and other high energy consumption and high heat chip-driven equipment, the energy consumption for cooling continues to grow. , the impact of sustainable development has become a pressing issue.
Iceotope worked with Intel and HPE to benchmark the power consumption of sample IT installations using traditional air cooling and precision immersion liquid cooling. The results show that liquid cooling offers significant advantages in reducing overall power usage for IT equipment and cooling infrastructure.
Lab testing using industry-standard high-power computing benchmarks across a range of tested ambient temperatures showed that the Iceotope Precision Immersion Cooling System achieved a 4% performance improvement at the server level at higher ambient temperatures and At the rack level, it reduces energy consumption by 1kW compared to air-cooled systems. This means that 5% of energy can be saved in the IT field alone, while in terms of cooling power usage efficiency (pPUE), air cooling is 1.4 and liquid cooling is 1.04, which can save 30% of energy.
Iceotope's Ku:l data center solution was demonstrated at HPE Discover, installed in a standard Schneider Electric NetShelter rack integrated into an HPE ProLiant DL380 server. Through channel partners, IT distribution giant Avidia provides support and warranty. The three companies collaborated in 2019 to provide liquid-cooled data center solutions.
It is generally accepted that air cooling cannot be used accurately or continuously to cool high-power chips and processors. With the emergence of increasingly dense IT equipment and large-scale data centers, it is no longer a suitable method to ensure the normal and stable operation of the operating environment. method.
Liquid is not only a more efficient cooling medium than air, but each liquid-cooled chassis is 100% sealed, protecting critical IT from the surrounding environment and making it impervious to dust, gas, and humidity, creating a stable working environment. Isolating IT from the external environment can lead to better results.
Also removing server fans and other air-handling equipment from the data center space would bring additional benefits. For example, energy usage is greatly reduced, water consumption is almost negligible, and noise becomes a thing of the past.
Unlike air-cooled infrastructure, precision immersion cooling does not require more rack space, allowing racks to house more servers and storage devices to handle denser IT loads.
Additionally, Iceotope’s sealed liquid-cooled chassis can simply convert existing air-cooled servers to liquid-cooled servers with only a few minor modifications, including removing the fans. This means that traditional industry-standard structures, including edge and data center racks, can be used for liquid-cooled IT, with on-site maintenance and hot-swapping very easy, without the need for bulky lifting equipment or leakage kits.
Jason Matteson, director of product strategy at Iceotope, said: “Ubiquitous artificial intelligence and the processing requirements of high-performance applications have created a sustainability dilemma for operators. Adapt while reducing carbon emissions at distributed edge locations and data centers. The dramatic increase in chip power is contradictory. Ku:l data center shows how to respond to the urgent need for a paradigm shift in data center design. "Today, sustainability demands data centers," said Jen Huffstetler, chief product sustainability officer at Intel. cooling solutions to increase efficiency, flexibility and scalability while also delivering the performance levels today’s computing demands.The new Ku:l data center precision immersive environment enables predictable IT performance, precise cooling and improved space utilization that meets today's mission-critical requirements.
Phil Cutrone, Vice President and General Manager, Service Providers, OEMs and Key Accounts at HPE, said: “With on-site monitoring and maintenance not always feasible, there is a greater need for zero-touch edge computing capabilities to ensure security at remote locations. reliability. The combined solution enables customers to access high-density applications using precision immersed and liquid-cooled racks for immediate deployment in any environment, whether in the data center core or at the edge.
According to Uptime Research, average server rack density increased by 15% from 7.3kW to 8.4kW between 2019 and 2020, and the introduction of microprocessors may also accelerate this trend. As The demand for cloud storage solutions continues to grow, and the energy efficiency and ability to adjust rack density provided by the new Iceotope Ku:l data center solution are becoming increasingly critical.
