How Immersion Cooling Enables Faster Servers When Overworking the Cloud

We are always told to keep liquids away from computers but it turns out liquid is necessary, although we’re referring to a different type of liquid.

CPUs can be made to push their speed limit to the higher side that it was supposed to support but as a result, it provides a faster server. Overusing does push performance but also causes heating problems. 

Electronic devices promise benefits and it also comes with a mentioned limit which is set keeping in mind several factors like to provide consistent performance for several years even if the performance level can be pushed to the higher side.

Servers in a cloud server company can’t be kept shut at regular intervals to cool down the servers that are why cooling equipment is required but also needs to be cooled down. 

Servers need to be maintained properly to provide the promised performance to the servers. Surely pushing the servers to work even it has been heating for a while may work for a while but can lead to delay in services.

Why do we need immersion cooling?

Gamers need to use PCs for a very long period and have been using the combination of water cooling to bring out maximum performance from PCs.

For several years, the chip went through advancements to be able to store more transistors in relatively same sizes but would still be capable to support double speed for computer processors for every two years without affecting the amount of electricity required to work at the rate of speed that was expected. 

The concept of doubling the speed of the chip even in the same chip is called Moore’s Law founded by Intel Co-founder Gordon Moore. Although now, it cannot provide the significant difference in speed that was earlier seen in the chip. This is because it has become very difficult to shrink the size of the transistors. Transistors are now made as small as could be possible. Also, computer components are itself delicate and complicated thus reducing the size arise various complications as well.

As it has difficult to increase the speed that could be supported by the chip, the world wants to move faster and demands a faster chip to carry out high-performing applications within a minimal time and at least minimal error rate.

Earlier, the speed supported by the chip was increased with the help of increasing the numbers of transistors stored in the chip without increasing the power to be required but now it is not the same. Since it has become difficult to store more transistors, chips will be made to provide better speed by increasing the amount of power consumption required by the chip. Now, the focus has been shifted from increasing the number of transistors in a chip to increasing the capacity of a chip to handle more electric power. Both CPU and GPU chipsets have an increase in watts per chip. The need for the chip to increase its capacity to bear high power of electricity is due to the reason if the chip is not made t handle electricity properly then it will lead to the generation of heat in the devices which could lead to hazardous situations.

This cause of heat generation in computer equipment and electronic devices requires the electronic equipment to have a cooling environment and if there is the usage of too much equipment ad devices like in companies then companies will require to invest in HVAC equipment to cool down the electronic devices. Also if the electronic equipment is not in a properly maintained cooling environment these devices can malfunction. 

The data center is a facility where data is centralized and then decentralized to the required user. In the data center, there are different electronic equipment, servers, networking devices, technologies that help store, processing and spread the data throughout the organization or the company to which it belongs. It has IT equipment and also protects the company’s data.

This same facility is provided by various reputed companies. What they do is that they provide the server for communication, network connection, stores data, files, applications, and software on behalf of the company, and also protect the data from unauthorized users. This is beneficial as individuals would save space in their premises and also save time and staff which will be otherwise required for maintaining the data center. Also, cloud server companies will have separate IT staff for that specific job so in case of a cyber-attack less time will be wasted.

When a cloud server company will be providing services to several large companies, then cloud serving company will be expected to have a good service but also other should be able to handle large files, applications, data of large companies for which technologies with chips will be used which would require a fast and effective way to cool down the IT equipment. It is also because after the pandemic people and employees have become more dependent on technologies, the internet, and online services, therefore, generating a large number of data.  

According to Christian Belady, he says that using air to cool is not effective as heat is transferred in liquids.

It is also seen that participants of cryptocurrency are also preferring to use liquid immersion cooling for computer equipment for cooling down the chip which helps in logging digital currency transactions.

How does immersion cooling work?

Microsoft is the first cloud provider to have its two-phase immersion cooling.

Microsoft has come up with the idea of using boiling liquid inside a steel holding tank packed with computer servers to cool data center servers. 

The fluid used boils inside a couch-shaped tank at the temperature of 122 degrees whereas water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit which is 90 degrees Fahrenheit less. The heat is released from the servers while they are working and the liquid carries away the heat from the computer processors. As the liquid requires less heat to boil thus it does not damage the servers that will be working and the servers will be able to carry out their functions without the risk of failure by overheating.

On the lid of the tank, there is a cool condenser. When the liquid starts boiling, it releases vapors that come into contact with the cool condensers and transform into a liquid. This liquid then drops onto the immersed servers and thus creates a closed-loop cooling system.

The liquid used in the tank is an engineered fluid from 3M. The liquid has dielectric properties which makes them effective insulators thus the servers operate without any reaction from the fluid even though the server is fully immersed in water.

Two-phased liquid immersion cooling provides extended flexibility for providing effective management of cloud resources.

LiquidStack and Summer also have been using immersion cooling. This is an effort to help maintain our sustainability goals because earlier HVAC equipment was used to cool down IT equipment which requires both electricity to operate and increased maintenance costs to the company. As a result, it will cause any overheating problems while using servers to their full potential. This is also effective as the chip gets from direct contact with the cooling liquid.

Overheating is also caused due to the peak hours of the day when most meetings are carried out.

It is no surprise companies and businesses very support the cloud service companies like Microsoft Azure, to carry out their business’s work which could be transferring data or accessing data. 

Even cars use liquid cooling to prevent cars from overheating.