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Immersion Cooling Drives Server Power Densities To Insane New Heights (datacenterfrontier.com)

Posted by timothy on from the or-maybe-depths dept.

1sockchuck writes: By immersing IT equipment in liquid coolant, a new data center is reaching extreme power densities of 250 kW per enclosure. At 40 megawatts, the data center is also taking immersion cooling to an entirely new scale, building on a much smaller proof-of-concept from a Hong Kong skyscraper. The facility is being built by Bitcoin specialist BitFury and reflects how the harsh economics of industrial mining have prompted cryptocurrency firms to focus on data center design to cut costs and boost power. But this type of radical energy efficiency may soon be key to America's effort to build an exascale computer and the increasingly extreme data-crunching requirements for cloud and analytics.

6 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. The eighties called... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...they want their cooling back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2

  2. Despite the summary, this is somewhat new... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Informative

    The difference with this approach is two-phase cooling, where they're actually boiling the heat transfer fluid. That can remove heat a lot more quickly, as long as you can keep a few issues under control:

    1) Getting a working fluid with an appropriate boiling point and otherwise acceptable physical parameters (non-flammable, doesn't dissolve your circuitry, etc). 3M has already stepped up to the plate on that.

    2) Recondensing the vapor fast enough. This is a lot easier than cooling the circuits directly.

    3) Preventing the hot chips from forming a vapor barrier, which insulates the chips from the coolant. The Leidenfrost effect is an example of this, but you can lose efficiency long before you reach the droplets-skittering-around level, especially if there are lots of nooks and crannies where bubbles can get stuck. Presumably the designers have handled this as well.

    If they go with a transparent enclosure and some gratuitous lighting, this could become the new mad-scientist/Big Scary Computer visual trope. Let's face it, lab coats, blinking lights and reel-to-reel tape drives are really tired...

    1. Re:Despite the summary, this is somewhat new... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 3, Informative

      I would think that it would be better to stay a liquid at all times and pump the liquid though a heat exchanger to be cooled using conventional refrigeration methods.

      The thing is, you typically move immensely more heat via phase changes than by simply raising and lowering a liquid's temperature. For water, heating one mole (about 18g, or 18 ml, or 1.2 tablespoons) of liquid from the freezing point to the boiling point takes about 7.5 kJ; converting that same amount of water from liquid at the boiling point to gas at the boiling point takes over 40 kJ. (Standard pressure, etc, etc.)

      That confers a huge advantage in two-phase systems. Yes, you have to deal with bubbles and vapor barriers, but you also get free vigorous agitation, reducing the risks of boundary layers and poor mixing that complicate all-liquid systems.

  3. Re:The sad part, evil pays the highest rent. by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 2, Informative

    Which sucker trying to front run suckers can I front run this nanosecond.

  4. Re:The sad part, evil pays the highest rent. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Better hurricane models (the current prediction technology had the worst hurricane on record cause -zero- deaths in Mexico.)

    That was caused by sensational journalism rather than bad models. Although Patricia was a record storm out at sea, models showed that it would lose energy as it passed over cooler waters close to the coast. The models correctly predicted that the winds would drop from 200mph to about 165 by the time it came ashore.

    The next big use for large machines is HFT. A microsecond or two on a fast pipe can mean millions in stock gains.

    The glory days of HFT are in the past. Speed is no longer an advantage when everyone is doing it. Besides, HFT needs fast pipes, but doesn't really need a lot of computation.

  5. Re:Destroying our world by theIsovist · · Score: 1, Informative

    Also, bitcoin transactions require barely any electricity at all, it's bitcoin mining that wastes valuable resources that could be more productively used on nearly anything else.

    Except bitcoin mining is inherently tied with transactions: https://www.bitcoinmining.com.... bitcoin mining is how the transaction system works, verifying each transaction. The system blows through cheap energy to make fake cash. The whole system results in a massive waste of energy for an inefficient currency.