Expanding Liquid Cooling Solutions for Modern Data Centres
Leading global data centre and networking optimisation firm, Park Place Technologies, announces an expansion to its IT infrastructure offerings. In the UK specifically, the company now offers immersion liquid cooling and direct-to-chip cooling within its portfolio of services.
Within the data centre sector, liquid cooling refers to removing heat from data centre components using a liquid coolant instead of air, whereas direct-to-chip cooling is a more specific method that uses a liquid to cool heat-generating components in servers. Both have been argued to be more efficient than air cooling.
The announcement from Park Place Technologies comes at a critical time for businesses who are seeing a sharp increase in the compute power they require. This surge is being driven by higher demand for technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Data centre demand is ‘heating up’
As a result of rapid and widespread digital transformation, data centres are needing more on-prem hardware, in addition to more space and more energy to run everything smoothly, which is creating challenges for businesses.
Data centre operations are already a sustainability concern, with the IEA already suggesting that global electricity demand grew 2.2% in 2023 and warning this figure could double by 2026.
According to Park Place Technologies, its new liquid cooling solutions are able to offer a significant solution for businesses looking to address environmental and demand concerns. Using these methods, the company suggests that businesses can increase their Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) by up to 18 times, in addition to rack density by up to 10 times.
As a result, businesses could see power savings of up to 50%, resulting in lower data centre operation costs.
Graphics processing units (GPUs) are the components of a data centre that often generate the most heat. As a result, immersion cooling methods often enable data centre operators to cool servers down without wasting more rack space or energy.
Likewise, liquid cooling has been touted by data centre companies as significantly more efficient than traditional air cooling methods, which in turn results in lower carbon emissions for businesses that adopt immersion cooling methods.
“Our new Liquid Cooling offerings have the potential to have a significant impact on our customers’ costs and carbon emissions, two of the key issues they face today,” comments Chris Carreiro, Chief Technology Officer at Park Place Technologies.
“Park Place Technologies is ideally positioned to help organisations cut their data centre operations costs, giving them the opportunity to re-invest in driving innovation across their businesses.
A need to mitigate environmental impact
Park Place Technologies states it can deliver a complete turn-key solution for organisations looking to implement Liquid Cooling technology. This strategy aims to remove the complexity of adoption, which is a common barrier for businesses.
Likewise, the company provides a single-vendor solution for the whole process from procuring the hardware, conversion of the servers for liquid cooling, installation, maintenance, monitoring and management of the hardware and the cooling technology.
“Park Place Technologies can work closely with customers to find the best solution for their business, and can guide them towards the best long-term strategy, while offering short-term results. This takes much of the complexity out of the process, which will enable more businesses to capitalise on this exciting new technology.”
“The decision to invest in Immersion Cooling and Direct-to-Chip Cooling depends on various factors, including the specific requirements of the data centre, budget constraints, the desired level of cooling efficiency and infrastructure complexity,” Chris adds.
Data centres are now a vital part of life, but sustainability issues such as environmental impact remain. Notably, it is estimated by Sensorex that approximately five million gallons of water is used every day to cool data centres down.
This impact on the climate will need to be heavily considered by operators to avoid depleting natural resources for local communities and wildlife.
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