Liquid cooling methods to address high-density applications at data centres

Vertiv has solutions for data centres of every size to address various challenges, providing dependability and improved performance, optimising cooling efficiency and safeguarding our clients’ mission-critical applications.

Data centres growth
India has been on a growth trajectory in the digital transformation of the business landscape. Organisations have adopted technology like never before, so businesses need to have reliable and efficient IT infrastructure. According to a report by Anarock and Binswanger titled “Under the Lens: India’s Data Centre Explosion”, the Indian data industry is currently worth USD 5.6 billion. As 45 new data centres are expected to come up in India by 2025, the industry is expected to double its capacity in two years. The Indian government’s move to accord infrastructure status to data centres and the requirement to localise all data generated and processed in India further bolsters the sector’s growth.

This surge will primarily be driven by factors like the increased adoption of digitalisation and emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Automation, and the introduction of the 5G network in the country. Additionally, the emergence of smart cities will increase the need for data centres across different parts of the country.

Moreover, we will likely see more data being generated and processed with hybrid work here to stay. This will pave the way for further expansion and growth and push more private and public players to invest in the sector.

Cooling solutions available for the extraction of heat generated by digital systems
There is a global drive for high-energy efficient, low-carbon emission-based products and technologies. Vertiv has solutions for data centres of every size to address various challenges, providing dependability and improved performance, optimising cooling efficiency and safeguarding our clients’ mission-critical applications. Our cutting-edge technologies to meet the ever-changing demand for data centre cooling includes large customised direct expansion (DX) cooling systems with economisers (refrigerant or water-based), adiabatic and free cooling chillers, evaporative free cooling systems, fan wall / large computer room air handler (CRAH), in-row cooling, rack cooling, and liquid cooling. As a global market leader in data centre cooling, our focus always remains on bringing innovations to reduce data centre power usage effectiveness (PUE) and total cost of ownership. Our new solutions include low GWP inverter screw chillers, large, packaged display screen equipment (DSE) pumped refrigerant systems and a liquid cooling portfolio to cater to the sustainable needs of medium and large data centre applications.

Data centre liquid cooling market
As the number of processing-intensive computer applications increases, data centre operators are looking at liquid cooling methods to address high-density applications. Today businesses employ artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) to fuel sophisticated analytics and automated decision-making and allow blockchain and cryptocurrency applications. So, the global market for liquid cooling is predicted to reach approximately $7 billion by 2026, with a CAGR of about 27 percent during the forecast period 2021- 2026.

To provide effective and economical cooling of high-density racks, liquid cooling uses water or other fluids’ increased heat transfer capabilities, which are more effective than utilising air. Liquid cooling, which has long been effective for mainframe and gaming applications, is now being expanded to safeguard rack-mounted servers in data centres worldwide. Last year, Vertiv teamed up with (Green Revolution Cooling) GRC in Asia to introduce its highly efficient liquid immersion cooling solutions. It has successfully implemented one of the largest immersion cooling sites in Asia.

Report Linker’s research suggests that indirect liquid cooling will likely hold a sizable portion of the industry. Indirect or direct liquid cooling, which comprises liquid-to-chip and natural or indirect-to-chip cooling systems, is a common technique in this study. A chilled water loop is used in indirect or liquid-to-chip cooling, often referred to as direct-to-chip or cold plate cooling, to transfer heat from the server to the outside. Additionally, research revealed that data centres increasingly use effective and cutting-edge cooling methods, including cold water, evaporative, and liquid cooling.

Energy-efficient measures to enhance the performance of data centres
Data centres have become a crucial component of an enterprise’s journey as both public and private firms increasingly focus on sustainability, often on energy efficiency or low water usage. Businesses could increase data centre capabilities and switch to energy-efficient technologies, making significant strides toward sustainability goals.

Some of the measures that enterprises can take to enhance data centre performance include the following-
• Investing more in liquid cooling solutions
• Urging OEMs to design systems that can handle higher air and water temperatures
• Use cloud-based services to distribute and externalise the consumption of power
• Switch to running applications on virtual machines to reduce power consumption rate and reduce storage devices
• Implement free-cooling techniques wherever possible
• Implement airflow management to reduce energy consumption
• Proper system maintenance
• Use Artificial Intelligence to study trends and apply the most suitable energy efficacy techniques, keeping uptime intact

• Customers can evaluate replacing key power-consuming components with the latest technology-based components for existing infrastructures. For example-traditional fans can be replaced with EC, conventional compressors to be replaced with digital/inverter scroll, low supply water of existing chillers to be changed to high supply water temperature, and evaluate existing cooling systems.

Data protection, localisation and its impact on the Indian data centre industry
Given the vast amounts of data generated in our country, data localisation will positively impact the data centre industry. The efforts taken by the government towards data protection norms and data localisation are indeed significant steps. India is expected to double its data centre capacity from 900MW to around 1800 MW by fiscal 2025. Enough data centre capacity is a prerequisite for data localisation over the coming years.