F E A T U R E
WHAT MOTORSPORT CAN TEACH DATA CENTRES ABOUT THERMAL MANAGEMENT
Michael Fuller, Executive Chairman of Conflux Technology, and former F1 engineer, explores how motorsport’ s approach to thermal engineering is helping data centres improve cooling performance while lowering energy use and operating costs.
ormula One has always been defined
F by relentless engineering development. Between race events, engineers redesign components, refine simulations and optimise every system in pursuit of performance gains. Every race demands a better solution than the last and the design is never truly finished.
Today, a remarkably similar engineering rhythm is emerging in AI infrastructure.
Successive generations of GPUs are arriving at unprecedented pace, each bringing higher power densities, new thermal requirements and different physical footprints. Server architectures continue to evolve, rack configurations are becoming increasingly specialised and operators are under pressure to deploy new hardware quickly while maintaining reliability, controlling energy consumption and managing operating costs.
Although the applications are very different, both industries face the same fundamental engineering challenge: extracting ever more heat from increasingly compact systems.
After years solving thermal management challenges in Formula One, I founded Conflux to apply that expertise
www. intelligentdatacentres. com 23