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

blogs.nvidia.com

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

#191

Post by chii »

eru wrote: post #188
amluto wrote: post #12

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nice pitch to a community if the data center offers to provide heat to a district heating system for free. This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. Summer is still an issu…

> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.

the datacenter doesn't have a few million dollars to spare.

The heat is waste heat. If it cannot be recovered as a profitable source of energy, the datacenter won't be able to pay that few million dollars.

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

#192

Post by guyomes »

amluto wrote: post #12

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nice pitch to a community if the data center offers to provide heat to a district heating system for free. This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. Summer is still an issu…

The data centers can also be used to heat swimming pools [1].

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939558

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

#193

Post by spockz »

amluto wrote: post #12

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nice pitch to a community if the data center offers to provide heat to a district heating system for free. This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. Summer is still an issu…

In the Netherlands we are already transporting “waste energy” in the form of heat to greenhouses to warm them in winter.

Also interesting that the article states that this engineering problem hadn’t been solved before. Google pioneered running chips hotter than before. Moreover, we have had water cooling in consumer setups for ages. (At least 30 years.) So what is new is that all chips have been attached to the loop. I couldn’t find what they did with PSU though.

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

#194

Post by verve_rat »

eru wrote: post #188
amluto wrote: post #12

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nice pitch to a community if the data center offers to provide heat to a district heating system for free. This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. Summer is still an issu…

> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.

But paying the money is less resource efficient than using the waste heat for a productive use. As a general rule we should probably insensitvise good use of resources that benefit the general population.

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

#195

Post by marcus_holmes »

badpun wrote: post #33
amluto wrote: post #12

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nice pitch to a community if the data center offers to provide heat to a district heating system for free. This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. Summer is still an issu…

European cities are doing it already.

Blew my mind living in a Berlin apartment, that the heating & hot water was managed centrally for the entire block (not the apartment block, the whole city block). Too used to Anglo cities where everyone does for themselves.

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

#196

Post by rswail »

metabagel wrote: post #59

The NASA Ames Research Center Modular Supercomputing Facility is highly efficient, both in terms of electricity and water use. The facility isn't air conditioned. The chips are water cooled, and the inlet water temperature is pretty high I believe - I think it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/doing-more-... https://www.nas.nasa.gov/assets/nas/pdf/ModularSupercomputin...

For those of us that use metric/SI units, 90F is 32.22C/305.37K.

Don't the US Military and NASA use metric now?

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

#197

Post by retrochameleon »

amluto wrote: post #29
ramon156 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live near a datacenter? Property value goes down, constant humming.. the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating

I’ve been to datacenters, but not the huuuge ones people seem to talk about in the context of AI. They are noisy inside (due to air cooling, which is largely avoided by the tech in the OP), but they’re entirely unremarkable outside compared to any other commercial or industrial building. Computers are not inherently loud, nor is power conversion. Power plants are all over, even in populated areas. They’re not so bad…

Look up Benn Jordan's video on datacenter infrasound. Just because you can't perceive the noise doesn't mean it's not there and it doesn't have an effect on the human body, especially over very long periods of time.

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

#198

Post by joe_mamba »

brailsafe wrote: post #109
drnick1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've been expected to put up with the much more annoying urban traffic noise for decades just fine? For one, there tends to be little traffic at night when most people want quiet in order to sleep. Driving is also something (nearly) everyone does and benefits directly from, so negative externalities are easier to accept. It is much harder to accept a new source of noise near your home you haven't asked for and don…

> 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.

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

#199

Post by joe_mamba »

energy123 wrote: post #70
joe_mamba wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, but data centers are no inside dense areas though.

They're being built in the US next to people's houses with gas turbines https://xcancel.com/BrianEntin/status/2067930868191035474?s=...

To me that only makes clear that gas turbines are the noise issues, no data centers. Surely there exists data centers that work off the main power grid and don't have a natural gas turbine as their own power source.
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