Architects Design a 65-Story Data Center (computerworld.com)

Reader dcblogs writes: Two Italian architects have designed a data center that challenges how the structures are built. Instead of constructing a flat, sprawling complex, they are proposing a 65-story data center. From a visual perspective, the circular, futuristic-looking 'Data Tower,' as Marco Merletti and Valeria Mercuri call it, almost seems like something out of Star Trek. But it incorporates sustainable technology for efficiently cooling hundreds of thousands of servers while increasing reliance on automation. The building has a modular, cylindrical design that uses a series of pods to house servers, which are available for service in much the same way automated parking garage move cars. The data tower, as with a radiator, is designed to have the maximum contact surface with the outside. The pods are hooked on to the circular structure of the tower to form a series of vertical blades.

Comments

It should be shaped more like a cooling tower.

[elwinc]

This architect doesn't seem to know enough about the physics of optimizing convective flow. It should be shaped more like a nuclear plant cooling tower, with a broader base, bigger cross section air inlets at the bottom, a bit of taper, and much larger diameter to height ratio.

Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower.

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
The assumption made with the cooling tower is that the majority of the heat to be carried away exists at the base.

The computing tower doesn't do that - it provides added heat all along the height (think radiator, or a hot pipe cooling pipe - you put cooling fins all along the pipe, not just at the bottom). And that makes the
broad base nearly useless.

The other advantage of the cylindrical tower is that fresh air may be drawn in at any level, and it conserves useful ground area.

If anything, it would be the inverse of the cooling tower, with the larger end at the top.