1. The continuous increase of computing power puts forward new requirements for heat dissipation technology, and liquid cooling is an effective solution
With the innovative development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, and blockchain, the era of 5G communications featuring high speed, low latency, and large connections has come. The amount of calculation is getting bigger and bigger, and the requirements for computing efficiency are getting higher and higher. In order to meet the challenge of network processing performance, data center servers and communication equipment continue to improve their processing capabilities and integration, resulting in a steady increase in power density. These changes not only bring huge energy consumption problems, but also high heat density puts forward higher requirements for refrigeration equipment and technology. The traditional air-cooling technology presents a bottleneck in high-heat-density scenarios, and the heat dissipation efficiency cannot keep up with the computing efficiency. In this context, liquid cooling technology has attracted widespread attention in the industry due to its characteristics of ultra-high energy efficiency and ultra-high heat density. Liquid cooling technology is the only way to solve the challenges of heat dissipation pressure and energy saving.
2. The continuous increase in computing power has higher requirements for chip heat dissipation, and liquid cooling is the only way to solve the heat dissipation pressure and energy-saving challenges.
The continuous increase of computing power promotes the increase of power density and puts forward new requirements for refrigeration technology. The continuous increase in computing power promotes the continuous improvement of the performance of communication equipment, and the power consumption and heat flux density of chips are also rising, and the power density of each generation of product evolution rises by 30-50%. The maximum power consumption of the contemporary X86 platform CPU is 300~400W, and the highest chip heat flux density in the industry has exceeded 120W/cm2; the continuous improvement of chip power density directly restricts the heat dissipation and reliability of the chip, and the traditional air-cooled heat dissipation capability is becoming more and more difficult to sustain. The increase in chip power density also brings about an increase in the power density of the entire cabinet, which currently exceeds 30kW/rack; it also poses a higher challenge to the cooling technology of the computer room. As an emerging cooling technology for data centers, liquid cooling is applied to solve the heat dissipation requirements of high power density cabinets.
Under the dual-carbon policy, the PUE index of the data center continues to decrease. In recent years, under the "dual carbon" policy, the PUE indicators of data centers have been continuously reduced. Most regions require that the power utilization efficiency shall not exceed 1.25, and actively promote the upgrading and transformation of data centers. For example, in Beijing, the electricity price of data centers exceeding the specified PUE Make a markup.
The cooling system accounts for 24% of the energy consumption of a typical data center, and reducing the energy consumption of the cooling system is an effective way to reduce the PUE. The continuous increase of computing power means that the energy consumption of the hardware part is also continuously increasing; on the premise of ensuring the operation of computing power, only by reducing the consumption of auxiliary energy in the data center can the PUE requirements under the energy saving goal be achieved. The cooling system accounts for more than 24% of the energy consumption of a typical data center, and is the highest proportion of auxiliary energy in the data center. Therefore, reducing the energy consumption of the cooling system can greatly promote the reduction of PUE. According to statistics, the electricity bill of my country's data center accounts for 60-70% of the operation and maintenance cost of the data center. With the accelerated deployment of servers, how to further reduce energy consumption and realize the green development of data centers has become the focus of the industry.
Liquid cooling technology can achieve excellent energy saving effect. In recent years, in order to reduce the power consumption of the refrigeration system, the industry has continuously innovated and explored the cooling technology of the computer room. The intermediate steaming/direct steaming technology reduces the PUE of the data center to 1.15~1.35 by shortening the refrigeration link and reducing the process energy loss; liquid cooling uses the high heat conductivity and high heat transfer characteristics of the liquid to further shorten the heat transfer path while making full use of The natural cooling source has achieved an excellent energy-saving effect with a PUE of less than 1.25.
