The world’s most powerful two-phase immersion cooling (2PIC) project, which will be deployed in a 40+ MW data centre being constructed by BitFury Group, is currently underway in the Republic of Georgia.
Immersion cooling or liquid cooling is growing in popularity across the globe it involves taking the water or other source of heat rejection (Novec 1230) directly to the server.
Depending on the application the server equipment can be completely submerged into the coolant.
Designed and built by the Hong Kong-based engineering company, Allied Control, the 2PIC project will use 3M Novec 7100 engineered fluid, an immersion coolant with a low Global Warming Potential (GWP).
Allied Control was recently acquired by BitFury Group, a leading Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company, which builds its own fully custom Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), PCBs, servers and data centres.
BitFury strives to use renewable energy for all of its business operations and remains committed to maintaining the smallest carbon footprint possible.
BitFury will leverage Allied Control’s 2PIC technology with Novec fluid in the Georgia data centereto deploy 28 nm and 16 nm ASICs more efficiently, saving energy and lowering operational costs while meeting goals of net carbon neutrality.
"With 250 KW per rackand not having reached the limits yet, we now have the ability to grow quickly and spread the cost of the cooling system over many hardware generations,” according to Kar-Wing Lau, vice president of operations at Allied Control.
3M has a long-held leadership position in immersion cooling. Over the past five years, 3M engineered fluids have been used in server cooling in a series of technology demonstrations and a number of increasingly ambitious deployments, which have been recognized by the industry for best in class energy efficiency.
2PIC involves placing hardware in an accessible tank of fluid coolant with a low boiling point, such as Novec 7100 fluid (61°C/142°F). As the hardware heats up in the tank, it boils the Novec fluid, and this change in state pulls the heat away from the components. The Novec fluid becomes a vapor, rises, condenses on a water-cooled condenser coil and falls back into the tank without the use of pumps. The streamlined system can deliver as much as 95 per cent cooling energy savings with minimal fluid loss.
The ability to create densely packed circuit boards paired with high-performance during overclocking made 2PIC a natural fit for blockchain transaction processing, an industry with a need for processing power that is growing at unprecedented rates.
This growth and progression can provide a roadmap for high performance computing as it evolves toward and beyond exascale.
BitFury CEO, Valery Vavilov, said the PUE achieved is the next level of data centre cooling for high performance computing. in addition to supporting extreme power density, immersion cooling has the potential to slash the cost of data centre infrastructure, allowing users to operate servers without a raised floor, computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units or chillers. It also allows ASICs to operate without fans.
Chips and components
Keeping servers and storage equipment cool is a key function of any data centre. Most use cool air in a “hot aisle/cold aisle” with water chilling loops confined to the air handlers and CRACs (computer room air conditioners) housed around the perimeters of the data hall.
The alternative is to bring liquids into the server chassis to cool chips and components. This can be done through enclosed systems featuring pipes and plates, or by immersing servers in fluids. Some vendors integrate water cooling into the rear-door of a rack or cabinet.
Immersion takes a different approach, sinking the equipment in liquid to cool the components.
Immersion cooling tanks also support rapid hardware refresh cycles, which is a particular focus for BitFury, which has frequently updated its ASIC design to keep pace with the arms race in bitcoin hardware.