LCS – The Endgame for Cooling Electronics

Data center design is at an inflection point because chips are too hot for air. The answer is LiquidCool Solutions’ chassis-based single-phase immersion with directed flow, which combines the energy efficiency of total immersion with targeted removal capability of cold plates.  LCS servers bundle off-the-shelf electronic components and fit in standard data center racks. They can be deployed anywhere there is power and connectivity.  Migration from air to LCS is seamless and inexpensive, because one LCS server has the computing power of four air-cooled servers.

Air cooling never made sense.  In many data centers it takes as much energy to cool the IT equipment as the ITE uses.  Air is an insulator, often used to keep heat from moving around.  Fans are noisy and inefficient, and the heat they generate adds to the cooling burden.  Also, oxidation and air-borne humidity and dust impede performance and shorten component life. The fact that air cooling has been the legacy data center design is incomprehensible. Now, with the introduction of AI chips, air can’t get the job done anymore and data center operators are compelled to bring liquid coolant into the white space.

Some forms of liquid cooling have been around a long time. Rear-Door and In-Row technologies reduce the volume of air to be cooled by bringing liquid to the rack but, mini air-conditioning systems cannot cool high-power processors.  Direct-to-chip heat exchangers, also called cold plates, are a transition solution that targets processors but leaves 30% of the heat generated by other components in the server chassis for removal by a parallel cooling system. 

I am a thermal engineer by education and experience and learned in engineering school the lesson of Occam’s Razor, solving a problem with the smallest set of elements. With this philosophy in mind, LCS technology eliminates chillers, air handlers and CRAC units that take up space and waste energy.  Equipment maintenance is reduced to pumps that circulate facility coolant from dry coolers to the racks and fans in the dry coolers.  No water is consumed if the ambient temperature is less than 115F and rack output temperature can be as high as 140F if there is a nearby commercial use for hot water. 

Data center design is at an inflection point because chips are too hot for air. LiquidCool Solutions’ chassis-based servers combine the energy efficiency of total immersion with targeted removal capability of cold plates. They fit in standard data center racks, are energy efficient, eliminate water consumption and cost less. Why would anyone do anything else?

LCS servers fit in standard data center racks and there are only two field connections from the data center coolant loop to the rack.  Among the advantages:

● Liquid circulation removes 100% of the heat. 

● All components are immersed in the chassis, so there is no need for humidity or dust control.

● Water consumption is eliminated.

● Waste heat can be recovered in liquid form at a commercially useful temperature.

● The dielectric liquid is inexpensive, has a Global Warming Potential of zero, and never needs to be replaced.

● Existing racks can be modified and reused, a vertical solution in a vertical world.

● Maintenance is simple, quick, and dripless.

● Servers can be installed one-at-a-time during refresh, so migration is simple and inexpensive.

● LCS-cooled servers cost less.

LCS chassis immersion reduces energy consumption up to 40%, white space up to 70%, eliminates water consumption and is the lowest cost option, by far for greenfield data centers, retrofits, and ITE refresh. 

LCS technology is a leap over other ITE cooling solutions, but data centers are big bets and users understandably want to test scalability, maintenance, and system efficiency before jumping in the  pool.  To that end, LiquidCool Solutions offers a low-cost test. For $60,000 data center operators can purchase a Small Scale Solution rack that contains four demonstration servers, a built-in Coolant Distribution Unit and a diagnostic screen that continuously displays component temperatures and system Power Usage Effectiveness; when the test concludes LCS will buy back the SSS for $50,000. The SSS rolls in on wheels and can be set up in two hours anywhere there is power and connectivity.  By way of example, a large electric utility recently tested an SSS, installing it in a hot, dusty turbine room at a coal-fired power plant. The test lasted four months, typically recording PUEs below 1.04. For a net expense of $10,000 the utility concluded it could save millions by switching to LCS, and ordered 40 servers that incorporated its specified processors, memory and storage devices.