I N F O G R A P H I C
DATA CENTRE EXPERTS BELIEVE NEW COOLING TECHNOLOGIES ARE NEEDED TO SUPPORT INCREASED COMPUTING DEMAND
Castrol survey reveals that industry experts believe that current data centre cooling systems will struggle to cope with increased computing demand. The finding comes at a time when the AI and Big Data boom piles increased compute demand on data centres.
Data centres could struggle under increased compute demand from AI, Big Data and Edge Computing, according to The Dipping Point, a survey carried out by Castrol, a global leader in lubricants.
The survey report is based on responses from 600 data centre industry leaders surveyed across seven geographical regions – the US, China, Germany, the Nordics, the UK, Canada and Ireland.
Nearly three-quarters( 74 %) of business leaders surveyed said that air cooling systems, the traditional method of cooling data centres, will struggle to handle the increase in data traffic.
While the same number believe that immersion cooling is now the only option for data centres to meet the current compute power demands.
And with compute demand only set to increase due to the boom of AI and Big Data, those that do not adopt new cooling methods now run the risk of data centre failure in the future.
Most business leaders surveyed agreed that their companies must adopt new methods that cool data centres more effectively. In fact, the majority( 76 %) think that the industry must adopt immersion cooling within the next three years to continue to see performance improvements.
Immersion cooling is a method used to keep data centres cool by submerging servers and computer components directly into a special non-conductive liquid. Instead of using air and fans to cool the hardware, the liquid absorbs the heat generated by the servers much more efficiently.
Current infrastructure is reaching its limits
“ As the demands on data centres soar, how we cool servers will become increasingly important. However, the industry clearly believes that we are fast approaching the limit of current air-cooled infrastructure. More data processing creates more heat, and rapid or sustained overheating will cause servers and hardware to malfunction or break, resulting in data loss, downtime and disruption to critical dependent services,” said Peter Huang, Global Vice President – Data Centre, Thermal Management, Castrol.
“ We have never experienced such rapid advancement in chip density. Over the past 20 years, a CPU generation has typically lasted three-to-five years. Now, we’ re seeing two generations per year to meet the demands of increasingly power-intensive applications.
“ This surge brings increased heat and rack density, and while traditional air-cooling systems remain effective for lower power density chips and racks, they struggle with anything over 50 KW. With future requirements approaching 1,000 KW, enhanced cooling infrastructure will be essential for data centres to keep pace.” �
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