Data Centres Risk Falling Behind Without Immersion Cooling
Industry experts believe that current data centre cooling systems will struggle to cope with increased computing demand.
According to a survey by Castrol, experts believe the industry must adopt immersion cooling within the next three years to continue seeing improvements to performance. Those that fail to do this are risking falling behind competitors, at a time where AI surges are putting high levels of demand on data centres.
The ‘Dipping Point’ survey finds that data centres could struggle under increased compute demand from AI, big data and edge computing unless action is taken.
“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,” says Peter Huang, Global Vice President – Data Centre, Thermal Management at Castrol.
“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.”
Confronting legacy infrastructure
Current data centre infrastructure is reaching its limits, with the business leaders surveyed by Castrol agreeing their company must adopt new methods that cool data centres more effectively moving forward.
More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents believe the industry must adopt new solutions like immersion cooling within the next three years to continue to see performance improvements. Likewise, 74% said that air cooling systems, the more traditional way to cool data centres, will struggle to handle the continued boom in data traffic.
- 76% support immersion cooling adoption within the next three years
- 74% say air cooling systems will struggle to handle data demands
- 90% are considering switching to immersion cooling between now and 2030
Immersion cooling is becoming a popular solution within the data centre industry, as it keeps data centres cool by submerging servers and components directly into a non-conductive liquid. Rather than using air and fans, the liquid is able to absorb generated heat.
As the data centre industry is having to confront increasing sustainability concerns, on account of the global AI boom, solutions like immersion cooling could stand to support greater energy efficiency.
Those taking part in the Castrol survey believe that immersion cooling is now the only option for data centres to meet their current compute power demands. Experts share that those who do not adopt these new methods could risk data centre failure in the future.
Peter adds: “We have never experienced such rapid advancement in chip density. Over the past twenty 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.”
Immersion cooling as a favoured solution
According to Castrol, business leaders expect immersion cooling to become the dominant data centre cooling technology in 2027. This means that competitors who do not invest in the technology could fall behind competitors who may be strategically planning downtime and investing in immersion cooling infrastructure.
76% of data centre experts believe immersion cooling will help data centre owners significantly reduce their energy and water consumption, with 77% of data centre experts believing that immersion cooling systems support current network demands.
Peter Huang concludes: “Data centre leaders can no longer afford to delay adopting modern immersion cooling technologies. With the AI boom pushing infrastructure to its limits, improving efficiency and resilience is now a necessity, not a choice.
“The future of our digital world depends on taking action today to ensure data centres are ready for tomorrow’s demands.”
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