While AI workloads continue to impact the design and energy management of modern Data Center, there is a paradigm shift to the quantity of power consumed by a server rack in a data center plus the power needed for cooling, measured in kilowatts. The surge in demand for an 80 KW – 120 KW per rack compared to earlier of 9 KW – 30 KW per rack have certainly pushed for advanced cooling solutions to maintain efficient PUE.

Shri Abhishek Singh, IAS, Addl Secretary, MeitY and CEO, IndiaAI stated that the “need of the hour is to design and develop an effective cooling solutions to realize a PUE less than 1.1. As technology advances, modern data centers can leverage new cooling solutions to improve on energy efficiency. As AI, machine learning, and deep learning areas are growing rapidly, alternative cooling technologies such as liquid cooling and immersion cooling are coming more into play to address the heat dissipated by high density server, network and storage racks.”

Organizations have developed a two-phase dielectric coolant primarily designed for high-intensity data center cooling needs. The use of Hydroflouroolefin fluid which is an unstructured organic compound composed of hydrogen, fluorine and carbon has a global warming potential (GWP) of up to 10. Use of undisclosed levels of Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as “forever chemicals.” are carcinogenic substances that have potential health risks including an increased risk of certain cancers, developmental issues in children, reduced fertility, weakened immune systems, and other long-term effects. There has been published studies by the American EPA and European ECHA that have highlighted this issue. There is a building consensus to begin phasing out these substances at the earliest possible.

Due to major safety concerns, companies have phased out equivalent products. Despite offering lower PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) solutions for data centers, two-phase immersion cooling systems are complex in construction and pose significant challenges for regular operation, risk of Vapour inhalation by operating personnel and maintenance in a data center environment.

Deliberations have to be done for an alternative sustainable eco-friendly and solution like the single-phase immersion cooling systems that will provide very power efficient PUE levels for efficient data center cooling under high-intensity training and inference workloads.

Data Centers design organizations can consider using such technologies for reducing energy consumption that will result in lower TCO. They can plan to design and manufacture single-phase synthetic hydrocarbon-based dielectric coolant for immersion cooling systems in India. This dielectric solution will be readily biodegradable, non-hazardous, and has a GWP of less than 1, making it an end to end Make-in-India offering for Data Center with Next Generation of Cooling technologies. This will also reduce import of cooling system components and accessories from various third-party OEMs for completing a fully functional two-phase cooling setup. The end-to-end Manufactured in India complete cooling components including single-phase Immersion pods, coolant distribution units with pumping and filtration, and the dielectric coolant necessary for cooling system, as a single-window solution.

IndiaAI Mission looks forward to support implementable ideas, R&D potential leading to commercialization for the benefit of Indian AI users through digital transformation.