Equinix is going to equip more of its own IBX datacenters with liquid cooling technology. The datacenter provider recently announced it would be leaning more heavily on this solution. In addition to using liquid technology for air cooling, Exquinix is now going to deploy direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology.
Equinix itself has been using and developing liquid cooling technology in its datacenter locations for years. This technology is used to give customers the best cooling options for their high-density hardware environments.
This includes working with liquid-based cooling system provider ZutaCore. In addition, Equinix has been working on its own liquid cooling initiative, under the banner of the Linux Foundation.
This so-called “Open19 V2 specification” has produced an open standard for liquid cooling that fits any 19-inch rack for servers, storage and networking.
AI main driving force behind cooling changes
In the recent announcement, Equinix says it is now adopting liquid technology in more of its IBX datacenters. It’s doing this primarily because more and more customers are using their hardware environments in the datacenters for AI solutions and applications.
This technology often requires cooling other than just air. Liquid-based cooling technology is then very interesting for this, Equinix says.
The cooling technology in Equinix datacenters will be offered on a vendor-neutral basis, allowing customers to choose which liquid cooling technology to use for their high-density hardware environments.
Now including direct-to-chip liquid cooling
In addition to liquid cooling for air-cooled environments, Equinix will also facilitate direct-to-chip liquid cooling going forward. This specific cooling technology consists of a coldplate mounted directly on the chip in a server. Along this plate runs a liquid that dissipates the heat produced by the processor.
Servers equipped with this specific cooling technology fit into normal IT form factors.
Liquid cooling in more than 100 IBX datacenters
Equinix will apply the advanced liquid cooling technology in more than 100 of its IBX datacenters and in 45 so-called “metro locations” worldwide. Examples include IBX datacenters in London, Silicon Valley, Washington DC and in Singapore.
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