Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Online > Online Single Topic Coverage by a Team > Northeast

Title of entry: 
Coverage of the foundational elements of liquid and immersion cooling, including in-depth news and forecast stories and a podcast discussion

Issue or Publication date:
“Experts see 'exponential' jump in liquid, immersion cooling interest” July 27, 2023; “What is liquid cooling?” August 2, 2023; “Immersion cooling tech is hot. What are hyperscalers waiting for?” August 2, 2023; “Accelsius thinks its Nokia-based cooling tech will be a hot commodity” September 14, 2023; “LiquidStack CEO: Customers want 4X more liquid cooling capacity than vendors have” November 13, 2023.

Publication name: 
Silverlinings

Publishing/parent company: 
Questex

View Website home page:
https://www.silverliningsinfo.com/

Description of the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

Through independent, original reporting Silverlinings provides cloud network architects with a reputable daily source of news, analysis and strategy for cloud infrastructure. Whether integrating new and old technology, providing security, improving visibility, merging public and private clouds, avoiding cloud lock-in, managing edge networks, and deploying 5G into the cloud, our aim is to get to the bottom of why cloud infrastructure is an everything market.

Silverlinings’ entry comprises a series of articles focused on a technology innovation which could replace air conditioning as the standard method of keeping data centers cool. Cooling is critical for data centers – and thus the cloud – because the processor chips which are housed inside compute servers need to be kept below a certain temperature to function properly.

For data centers, too much heat is the enemy. And as artificial intelligence (AI) drives demand for faster, more powerful processors (both CPUs and GPUs) in data center servers, the scale of the cooling conundrum grows daily.

Today’s air conditioning systems are reaching the limits of their cooling capabilities. Additionally, municipalities are pushing back against the immense power and water requirements of data centers today, and the noise pollution generated by their traditional air conditioning systems. Thus data center operators are being forced to look for new, more efficient ways to keep their servers cool.

Enter liquid cooling, a technology that uses specially formulated coolant and a variety of complex methods to help data centers maintain temperatures. Since July 2023, Silverlinings has been digging deep into all the methods of liquid cooling and talking to a wide variety of players in this emerging market.

One of these methods is direct to chip cooling, which requires tiny tubes of cooling liquid to be run into a server and over the surface of the processor itself. Immersion cooling is another technique which involves submerging servers directly into a vat of cooling liquid. There are also different sub-types of liquid cooling, including single and two phase. These refer to the states of matter: in single phase the cooling liquid remains a liquid while in two phase it is evaporated before being re-cooled and condensed back into a liquid.

Each type of liquid cooling comes with pros and cons. For instance, direct to chip is more mature and readily available, but immersion is more effective. We’ve been following the latest developments on all fronts, including which versions of the technology data center and cloud providers are choosing and why.

Accelsius, Asperitas, Dell, LiquidStack, Vertiv – Silverlinings’ Diana Goovaerts spent hours talking to industry experts as well as industry analysts to understand how liquid cooling works and the challenges of its wide-scale implementation in order accurately explain its importance to our readers.

Our coverage to date included two explainer articles covering the foundational elements of liquid and immersion cooling, multiple in-depth news and forecast stories and a podcast discussion.

Links to entry URLs

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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
Please enter a URL that will direct judges to the entry: 
https://www.silverliningsinfo.com/data-center/experts-see-exponential-jump-liquid-immersion-cooling-interest
Additional URLs, if needed:
https://www.silverliningsinfo.com/data-center/what-liquid-cooling
https://www.silverliningsinfo.com/data-center/immersion-cooling-tech-hot-what-are-hyperscalers-waiting
https://www.silverliningsinfo.com/data-center/accelsius-thinks-its-nokia-based-cooling-tech-will-be-hot-commodity
https://www.silverliningsinfo.com/data-center/liquidstack-ceo-customers-want-4x-more-liquid-cooling-capacity-vendors-have