As data centers scale to meet the rising demands of high-performance computing (HPC), AI, and cloud applications, efficient thermal management becomes a critical factor in maintaining system performance and reliability. Immersion cooling technology is emerging as a game-changing solution that enables data centers to address these challenges more effectively than traditional air or liquid cooling methods.

Immersion cooling involves submerging servers and IT equipment directly into a non-conductive coolant, which efficiently absorbs and dissipates heat from the hardware. This method eliminates the need for fans, drastically reduces energy consumption, and allows for greater compute density by enabling higher power loads per rack. Additionally, immersion cooling significantly reduces operational noise and simplifies data center infrastructure by eliminating the need for complex air handling systems.

By offering enhanced energy efficiency, improved cooling performance, and a more sustainable approach, immersion cooling is becoming an essential technology for data centers looking to optimize their operations and reduce their environmental impact.

Immersion Cooling
Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency

The significant power consumption of data centers has consistently posed a challenge for achieving sustainable management objectives. With the advent of the new generation of chips, chip sizes are expected to decrease while the number of transistors will rise. This translates to a demand for more excellent computing performance, but it also increases power consumption and subsequent heat generation. Consequently, data centers are in need of a more effective cooling approach to address the server's heat dissipation issue.

A metric known as power usage effectiveness (PUE) is utilized to measure this efficiency. PUE is a ratio that contrasts the power consumed by the entire data center with the power utilized by the IT equipment. Theoretically, an ideal PUE value is 1.0. However, in traditional air-cooled data centers, the PUE typically exceeds 1.6. In contrast, the best PUE achieved with immersion heat dissipation is as low as 1.03.

In the table, immersion cooling has higher costs but achieves closer-to-ideal PUE performance compared to traditional methods.