Liquid cooling solutions gain momentum as AI workloads turn up the heat in data centers

Lenovo, Dell, Supermicro and Giga Computing have all showcased new products

News By Wayne Williams published 2 November 2024

Artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented demand in data centers, as the need for processing vast amounts of data continues to surge.

As tech giants race to expand their infrastructures to accommodate AI workloads, they are faced with the growing challenge of how to sustainably and affordably power these operations - and this has even led companies like Oracle and Microsoft to explore nuclear energy as a potential solution.

Another critical issue is managing the heat generated by powerful AI hardware. Liquid cooling has emerged as a promising way to maintain optimal system performance while handling rising energy demands. In October 2024 alone, several tech firms announced liquid cooled solutions, highlighting a clear industry shift in that direction.

Liquid-cooled SuperClusters

At its recent Lenovo Tech World event, the company showcased its next-gen Neptune liquid cooling solution for servers.

The sixth generation of Neptune, which uses open-loop, direct warm-water cooling, is now being deployed across the company’s partner ecosystem, enabling organizations to build and run accelerated computing for generative AI while reducing data center power consumption by up to 40%, the company says.

At OCP Global Summit 2024, Giga Computing, a subsidiary of Gigabyte, presented a direct liquid cooling (DLC) server designed for Nvidia HGX H200 systems. In addition to the DLC server, Giga also revealed the G593-SD1, which features a dedicated air cooling chamber for the Nvidia H200 Tensor Core GPU, aimed at those data centers not yet ready to fully embrace liquid cooling.

Dell's new Integrated Rack 7000 (IR7000) is a scalable system designed specifically with liquid cooling in mind. It's capable of managing future deployments of up to 480KW, while capturing nearly 100% of the generated heat.

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