Researchers develop breakthrough liquid-cooling solutions for AI data centers: ‘A groundbreaking initiative’

Jeremiah Budin

Artificial Intelligence — commonly referred to as “AI” — is a significant threat to our planet, as it is using up so much energy that coal-burning power plants slated for retirement have been forced to stay open to meet the demand as other energy sources scale up.

Since the AI problem doesn’t seem to be going away, it stands to reason that we now need more environmentally friendly ways of meeting this unprecedented energy demand. To that end, Fujitsu Limited and Supermicro, Inc. have announced that they are collaborating on “developing liquid-cooled systems for HPC, Gen AI, and next-generation green data centers,” HPC Wire reported.

“The collaboration between Fujitsu and Supermicro is a groundbreaking initiative that will accelerate green computing innovation,” Vivek Mahajan, corporate vice president, CTO, and CPO, Fujitsu, said. “By combining our technologies, we will enable high-performance, energy-efficient AI system infrastructure, driving the evolution of AI and Digital Transformation (DX).”

Even though there are real-world applications for machine learning, many of the products being marketed as “AI” are simply vaporware — a term for a computer-related product that exists only in theory, but is being sold as if it actually does something.

Still, the amount of energy being consumed by this burgeoning industry has the potential to make life a whole lot worse for every being on Earth, as it consumes massive amounts of dirty energy, creating heat-trapping air pollution and pushing the overheating of our planet into overdrive.

Unfortunately, for the people who stand to make money off of these products, this doesn’t seem to factor into their decisions much, if at all. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who recently faced questions about AI energy usage at an AI conference, told presenters, “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway,” adding, “the needs in this area will be a problem, but I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.”

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If, as Schmidt would like people to believe, AI is indeed going to solve all of the world’s problems, it could at least have the help of the liquid cooling technology from Fujitsu and Supermicro.

Liquid cooling is reportedly more efficient than traditional air cooling, as water conducts heat much faster than air.

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