Equinix, an international digital infrastructure firm, has unveiled plans to extend support for advanced liquid cooling technologies to over 100 of its International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres across more than 45 global metropolitan areas, including Hong Kong.

This move marks an enhancement to Equinix's current offering supporting liquid-to-air cooling, available at nearly every IBX outlet. The aim is to enable businesses to utilise the most effective cooling technologies for high-density hardware that supports computationally demanding workloads such as artificial intelligence (AI).

Sean Graham, Research Director at IDC focusing on Cloud to Edge centre trends, highlighted the increasing demand for data-intensive and high-compute applications, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI). The hardware needed for these applications is driving up densities within data centres, making traditional cooling methods less efficient.

Graham emphasised a rising need for liquid-cooled solutions, especially as enterprises seek more effective ways to cool their hardware. He stressed the importance of data centre providers, such as Equinix, being equipped to support and accommodate this next generation of cooling solutions.

Sean Graham said, "The hardware required to run these new applications is pushing up densities inside data centres and can no longer be efficiently cooled by traditional techniques."

"We are seeing a growing demand for liquid-cooled solutions from enterprises, and it is essential that data centre providers, like Equinix, can support this next generation of cooling solutions."

The phased rollout of commercialised direct-to-chip liquid cooling across more than 45 metros, including key Asian cities like Hong Kong, Chennai, Melbourne, Mumbai, Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, will allow customers to deploy advanced liquid cooling solutions for mission-critical needs. This falls in line with the policy objectives and initiatives of the Hong Kong Government to spur the growth of the digital economy and smart city with increased deployments of emerging technologies such as AI.

Tiffany Osias, Vice President of Global Colocation at Equinix, explained that "liquid cooling is revolutionising how data centres cool powerful, high-density hardware that supports emerging technologies, and Equinix is at the heart of that innovation."

Tiffany added that the company's key goal is to assist organisations in innovating data centre capacity to support the complex, modern IT deployments that applications like AI necessitate.

Equinix will support major liquid cooling technologies, including direct-to-chip and rear-door heat exchangers. This would enable customers to benefit from the most efficient solutions. Equinix will also maintain a vendor-neutral stance, allowing customers to utilise their chosen hardware provider for their deployments.

Echoing this sentiment, Erez Freibach, Co-Founder and CEO of ZutaCore, noted that "effective cooling solutions are essential for data centres to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of computing."

"Liquid cooling has a critical role to play in supporting the next wave of digital infrastructure. We're excited to see Equinix expand the number of liquid cooling enabled data centres."