Summary
This technical report discusses the implementation of liquid cooling in data centers, particularly focusing on the cooling of Micron SSDs. It outlines the increasing power demands from modern workloads such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, which necessitate more effective cooling solutions. The report presents a case study by Vertiv that illustrates the benefits of liquid cooling, showing a direct correlation between the percentage of cooling load served by liquid cooling and the reduction in total data center power consumption. The document explains how cold-plate liquid cooling works for SSDs, detailing the thermal interface materials and coolant circulation processes involved. It also compares the thermal efficiency of liquid cooling versus traditional air cooling, emphasizing the advantages of liquid cooling in managing the heat generated by high-density SSD configurations. The findings underscore the importance of adopting liquid cooling technologies to meet the thermal and energy efficiency challenges posed by contemporary data center operations.
