Schneider Electric collaborates on liquid cooling solutions

Schneider Electric, Avnet and Iceotope are teaming up to jointly develop new liquid cooling solutions for data centers.

The collaboration will integrate Avnet's technology integration services; Iceotope's chassis-level immersion cooling technologies; and Schneider Electric's data center infrastructure solutions.

According to Schneider Electric's preliminary analysis of the difference between liquid cooling and air cooling, it found that liquid cooling could produce CapEX savings of 15%. Additionally, energy savings could amount to at least 10%, leading to a 20-year total cost of ownership savings of more than 11%.

"Compute intensive applications like AI and IoT are driving the need for better chip performance," comments Schneider Electric's Innovation and secure power CTO and SVP, Kevin Brown.

"Our quantitative analysis and testing of liquid cooling approaches shows significant benefits to the market. This partnership is the next step in solution development, and we are excited to be working with Avnet and Iceotope.

The companies illustrate graphical processing units (GPUs) as an example of a system that could benefit from liquid cooling power. GPUs are able to parallel-process a number of applications such as big data analytics and artificial intelligence.

"The chips are increasingly power dense with thermal design power ratings reaching 400

watts or more. This makes traditional data center air-cooled architectures impractical, or costly and

less efficient than liquid-cooled approaches where the server is partially submerged in a dielectric fluid," the companies explain.

Liquid cooling could offer solutions that are:

• Efficient: No need for air conditioning, delivers same processing power with less energy
• Silent: No industrial drone from fans and pumps
• Resilient: All components are in a sealed module that resists dust and smoke
• Compact: Smaller, more flexible footprint

"Iceotope is delighted to work with Schneider and Avnet on a solution that delivers on the promise of liquid cooling," comments Iceotope CEO David Craig.

"Working with great partners that share the same passion for innovation, solution focused thinking and quality is a pleasure. Our ability to bring our IP to combined solutions that manage the pressing challenges of chip density, energy and water consumption, space and location challenges and the ever more complex issues relating to harsh environment and climate will be game changing in the industry.

Avnet Integrated global president Scott MacDonald adds, "Largely driven by the recent explosion of IoT, the processing power needed for workloads like AI in data centers requires advanced solutions to keep connected systems operating efficiently.

 "The development of a liquid cooling technology solution offers customers the performance needed to deliver on these growing compute demands. This is a prime example of how we work with customers to provide the advanced solutions necessary to meet the needs of data-centric workloads in virtually every industry.