2-phase immersion liquid cooling was featured prominently today at the 2021 Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit in San Jose, California.
Microsoft is a leading proponent of 2-phase immersion liquid cooling, being the first cloud provider to use the technology in a production environment. At this year’s OCP Summit, the company is taking a clear leadership role in promoting the technology by showcasing a centerpiece display of LiquidStack’s DataTank 4U populated with AMD-based cloud computing servers.
In keeping with the event’s theme of “Open Possibilities,” Microsoft is touting the many benefits of 2-phase immersion cooling, including the concept of overclocking—operating chip components beyond their predefined voltage, thermal and power design limits. Microsoft has concluded “that for some chipsets, the performance can increase by 20 percent through the use of liquid cooling.”
In addition to breaking thermal barriers to chip performance and enabling higher compute power for AI and Machine Learning applications, 2-phase immersion cooling is critical to Microsoft’s sustainability goals. These include significant reduction in carbon emissions and the eventual elimination of water used for cooling data centers. Specifically, Microsoft aims to be carbon-negative and water-positive by 2030.
Air and water cooling systems consume massive amounts of electricity and water. By immersing servers in a dielectric, non-conductive fluid, 2-phase immersion cooling eliminates the need for these wasteful cooling systems that contribute to climate change and water shortages – while reducing costs.
Microsoft’s ambitious sustainability agenda includes reducing water use in datacenter operations by 95% by 2024; being carbon-negative and water-positive by 2030; designing data centers that provide regenerative value for local communities; and slashing carbon footprints in datacenter design and construction. LiquidStack is proud to support Microsoft’s bold sustainability goals and initiatives with its 2-phase liquid immersion cooling technology.
Key Stats of 2-phase Immersion Liquid Cooling:
- 30x more heat rejection than air-cooling (up to 252kW per 48RU)
- 41% reduction in energy use vs. air cooling
- Zero water consumed for heat rejection
- 61% reduction in whitespace (based on 150kW per DataTank)
- Nominal pPUE of 1.02 to 1.04 (site-dependent)
- 44% lower CAPEX than air cooling and 15% improvement in TCO over 20 years
