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IBM Deploys Hot-Water Cooled Supercomputer
MrSeb writes "With the ISC (International Supercomputer Conference) kicking off this week, there's been a flurry of announcements around new supercomputer buildouts. One of the more interesting systems debuting this week is SuperMUC — IBM's new supercomputer at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center in Germany IBM is billing SuperMUC as the first 'hot-water cooled supercomputer,' an advance it claims cut power consumption by 40%. Dubbed Aquasar, the new system looks like any standard water cooler: water is pumped in one side of the blade, circulates throughout the system, and is pumped out. The difference, according to IBM, are the microchannels etched into the copper heatblock above the CPU cores. Rather than simply being dumped, SuperMUC's waste heat is designed to be converted into building heat during winter. Presumably it is mostly radiated away in summer, rather than being dumped into the offices of angry German scientists."
"Rather than simply being dumped, SuperMUC's waste heat is designed to be converted into building heat during winter. Presumably it is mostly radiated away in summer"
They might be storing the heat rather than dumping it in the summer.
We are building a meat processing facility. Meat processing facilities use a lot of energy for heating water, cooling carcasses, freezing and general storage & air conditioning. To reduce our energy needs we're storing winter in thermal mass so that we can use it during the warm seasons. We're also using the 'waste heat' from our refrigeration compressors to heat water in addition to solar hot water and the backup of propane heating for the water. All of this will save us enormous amounts of money since we won't have to buy as much energy. Good for our carbon foot print and even better for our bottom line as more money will stay in our pockets rather than being dumped into the environment. IBM could do the same.
See http://sugarmtnfarm.com/butchershop
He didn't say "just get rid of AC". He was wondering if you designed the shape of the room where it has a constant draft. That way, the heat is cycled out of the building and cool air is pulled in from the other side. If you had a sever room that was 10 feet wide and 200 feet long, you could have one heck of a wind tunnel effect.