Immersion Cooling for

Green Computing

Fangzhi/Director/Alibaba
 Key Points

1、Background

2、Today’s Datacenter Challenges

3、Why immersion cooling?

4、Challenges of immersion cooling

5、Alibaba progress and plan

2018 Alibaba Group

Background：Big Data Era

More things Faster More data

2018 Alibaba Group
Background：
Computing drives devices into higher power consumption

 Computing drives devices into higher power

consumption.

2018 Alibaba Group

 Key Points

1、Background

2、Today’s Datacenter Challenges

3、Why immersion cooling?

4、Challenges of immersion cooling

5、Alibaba progress and plan

2018 Alibaba Group

Today’s Datacenter Challenges
1. high power density racks’ cooling

 Computing drives devices into higher power consumption. Rack power density is growing
rapidly
 Air-Cooling cannot meet the heat dissipation demand any more

2018 Alibaba Group

Today’s Datacenter Challenges
2. PUE/TCO

*A Shehabi: LAWRENCE BERKELEY

NATIONAL LABORATORY "United
States Data Center Energy Usage
Source： Uptime Institute Report", 2016.
survey of over 1100 data centers

 The energy consumption of the data center for cooling is quite large.
 How to achieve low PUE and optimized TCO? That has become a new challenge.
2018 Alibaba Group
 Key Points

1、Background

2、Today’s Datacenter Challenges

3、Why immersion cooling?

4、Challenges of immersion cooling

5、Alibaba progress and plan

2018 Alibaba Group

What is immersion cooling?

IT equipment

liquid

tank CDU
Cooling-tower
liquid Heat exchanger
Liquid (3M Fluids) has better Specific Heat
Capacity than air.
IT Inert Fluid Loop Water Loop
equipment
P
 No CRAC in IDC， low PUE 1.05-1.07
P
Pumps
Pumps
2018 Alibaba Group
Why immersion cooling?
Air Cooling Cold Plate Immersion Cooling
0 means “Base Line”
+ means “Better”
- means “Worse”
Cooling Capacity 0 + ++ Immersion Cooling is the best.

Hardware Integration 0 + ++ No fans in immersion Cooling.

Maintenance 0 -- - New mechanical design.

Hardware Reliability 0 - + Unaffected by dust , humidity and vibration.

Hardware Performance 0 + ++ Cooling helps improving performance.

Energy Efficiency 0 + ++ No fans, chillers, CRAHs.

Heat Recovery 0 + ++ Easy to be recovered from liquid.

Noise 0 + ++ No fans, no noise.

Corrosion 0 + ++ Isolation from air, no corrosion.

Material Compatibility 0 0 ? Material compatibility needs to be tested.

Initial Capex 0 - -- Liquid cost is temporarily high.

Opex 0 + ++ No fans, chillers, CRAHs. Low PUE.

Weight 0 - -- Liquid is heavy.

Advantages of immersion cooling: (1) Best cooling capacity (2) lowest TCO/PUE ….

2018 Alibaba Group

Why immersion-cooling?

300%+ Higher Density

2018 Alibaba Group

Why immersion cooling?

Power consumption comparison

Air-cooling Vs immersion cooling Less Power Consumption
PUE=1.5 PUE=1.07
Less Carbon emission
Better TCO
Total:1.5 Total:0.963

36%
Fan
IT Equipment

(0.1)
Reduction
(KW)

 36% less power by using immersion cooling

IT Device
(0.9)
IT Device
(0.9)
 Reduce 3 tons carbon dioxide emission per IT
Cooling KW per year
Facility
(KW)

+power Cooling
+other +power
(0.5) +other
(0.063)
Air Immersion  TCO optimization
Cooling Cooling

2018 Alibaba Group

Why immersion cooling?
Higher Reliability

Liquid protects IT devices from harsh

environment including high temperature,
humidity, vibration, dust
Source: US Air Force Avionics Integrity Program

2018 Alibaba Group

 Key Points

1、Background

2、Today’s Datacenter Challenges

3、Why immersion cooling?

4、Challenges of immersion cooling

5、Alibaba progress and plan

2018 Alibaba Group

The challenge of immersion cooling

System level

Component level

Basic Level

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Challenges of immersion cooling

Basic Level

Signal Integrity Heat Dissipation

Material Compatibility
(PCB/ CONN) Surface Treatment

2018 Alibaba Group

Challenges of immersion cooling

Component Level

CPU, Storage, Memory, Performance, Stability,

Optical Devices
HBA Energy efficiency

2018 Alibaba Group

Challenges of immersion cooling

System Level

Server architecture,
Tank sealing, Data center architecture Monitoring and
Maintainability, CDU pipe layout Management system
Space utilization

2018 Alibaba Group

 Key Points

1、Background

2、Today’s Datacenter Challenges

3、Why immersion cooling?

4、Challenges of immersion cooling

5、Alibaba progress and plan

2018 Alibaba Group

Alibaba Progress and Plan
2017 2018 2019 2020
Q1 Q1
Q3 Q3
2019 2020

Today Phase 2
Phase 1
Design & Validation&Pilot Run
Server/Tank/IDC/Network product long tern reliability data High power density co-
collection
Maintain operation consolidation
design
and mass deployment

2018 Alibaba Group

Summary &Key Takeaways

1. Immersion cooling is a better way to tackle the high power density

challenges

2. Immersion cooling is not far away , but still needs ecosystem partners
to support

3. Alibaba is the first CSP to deploy the immersion cooling systems,

willing to contribute to the community

2018 Alibaba Group