Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

blogs.nvidia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 450 posts

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#441

Post by dyauspitr »

jondwillis wrote: post #390
dyauspitr wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why? I want cheap tokens. Build a data center on every block (or more realistically in all the empty space we have everywhere).

Unironic Paperclip Maximalism. Huh. I propose that you don’t actually want cheap tokens. You want cheap tokens in service of some other goals. Are they worth the environmental cost?

Yeah, I imagine most computer systems will just talk to each other fuzzily. Millions of tokens/s real time, dirt cheap, working on loops, solving problems.

They don’t have to be bad for the environment. We can mandate that all new data centers be entirely solar+battery powered.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#442

Post by dyauspitr »

arm32 wrote: post #394
dyauspitr wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why? I want cheap tokens. Build a data center on every block (or more realistically in all the empty space we have everywhere).

dyauspitr, please respond. I'm trying to contact you about building a data center next to your home, or in your basement, or in your closet. I'll set it up for you. Please respond.

Gladly. I’ll give you an acre if you pay me for the land.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#443

Post by kayo_20211030 »

hommelix wrote: post #176
kayo_20211030 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Munich many years ago, but if the temperature ever went to the high thirties for more than a day we'd expect the end of the world :-)

Come now to south of Germany. We are in the middle of a 10 days heatwave at 35 degC on average.

Good grief! That's crazy.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#444

Post by JackSlateur »

sidibe wrote: post #256
joxdosba wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you stopped for a second to consider the utter mathematical absurdity of what you’re suggesting here? It is impossible for a datacenter to meaningfully heat more than the air in its immediate vicinity.

This has also one of the arguments against AC in France, shame on you for wanting to moving the hot air from inside to outside.

Once moved, you have more hot air.

No free lunch.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#445

Post by stevenhuang »

joxdosba wrote: post #291
prmoustache wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few AC is one thing. Many AC in a limited space covered in concrete with almost zero tree in the area is another thing. We need to be more specific about what we are talking about. Anyway ACs are not enough in a city. ideally you also want streets with a significant amount of trees and greenery so that there is significant shade and heat from sunlight doesn't radiate too much from concrete/pavement.

France is not under threat from this.

It's not a uniquely France thing. It's called heat islands, it's a real thing that happens in dense metros.

Very funny to deride France education when you are the ignorant one here.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#446

Post by rjmunro »

mukbangpervert wrote: post #190
audunw wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe those complaints are for datacenters using gas turbines for power. I think some of the recent ones (xAIs?) was built without sufficient power from the grid.

xAI colossus was built without sufficient grid power, so uses "mobile" gas turbines to generate power. It's absurd, and serves as evidence that we need a confiscatory wealth tax, if we want to maintain a society.

I agree it's absurd and I'm in favour of some kind of wealth tax, but I don't get the connection here. This feels like a failure of infrastructure planning laws and things like noise regulations.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#447

Post by boxed »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #430
coldtea wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why're living on a ball of gently (and not so gently) rising temperatures...

It used to be much warmer.

Sure. The Earth used to be a ball of lava. Kinda not relevant when discussing the survivability of modern humans or the vast majority of the ecosystem though.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#448

Post by boxed »

customguy wrote: post #414
croes wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what they are doing > capture heat directly at the source and transport it to outdoor dry coolers, essentially large radiator coils positioned outside the building. The heat goes into the air

The correct place to bring that up is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48672306 Dumping hot water into rivers harms ecosystems regardless of whether anyone happens to do it right now, and asking for a citation for that is such a WTF in and of itself we really shouldn't gloss over it.

I mean, "hot water" is a bit vague. What kind of temperature differentials are a problem? 0.01 degrees C 50 meters down stream I'm guessing isn't. 100 degrees C I'm assuming is super bad. What is the effect size? How much do we have to dump into a river must depend on the flow rate of the river, the dumping, the temperature of the river and the temperature of the dumped water, etc, etc.

And nothing at all is too stupid of a question to want an answer to. That way leads to people screaming at each other over social media instead of engaging with facts.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#449

Post by [deleted] »

splendidz wrote: post #406
FridgeSeal wrote: post #228

> In the right geography — somewhere with reliably cool outdoor air Aaahh, there’s the catch. “Save resources on cooling by building your data centre somewhere cold, and pollute the surrounding environment by dumping your waste heat wholesale into that!” Good job Nvidia, I almost thought we had something good there.

Classic "solve one problem, create another" move. At least they are honest about the tradeoffs I guess.

[deleted]

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#450

Post by brailsafe »

joe_mamba wrote: post #198
brailsafe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Driving is also something (nearly) everyone does and benefits directly from, so negative externalities are easier to accept. This reads a little too close to driving being an inherently good thing or some sort of objective requirement, but it's only that way in certain urban places because the built environment makes it as arduous as possible to do those things without. Something that pisses me off about many urban…

>s that many who do use their cars the most often have their neighborhoods protected from the noise they contribute to everywhere else. This, so much this. All the noise producing infrastructure in cities is dumped in the highly dense poor areas, and the rich people living in the quiet suburbs in single family home who need to drive in front of your home, are protected by this externality.

Politicians also like to pat themselves on the back for things like zoning density "particularly along transit corridors" as if only the immediately stroad-adjacent parcels are viable for accessing the bus and anyone who makes less than $300k a year should be grateful.

Like thanks, I guess, for doing the absolute minimum that should have already been the default policy for 50 years

Post reply on HN