Water-Cooling: Sustainable Technology to Increase Efficiency

Though water-cooling computer chips is nothing new, IBM’s June 5 press release introduces progressively sophisticated technology, which can now reach almost directly to the hottest part of the chips by using tiny, strand like pipes of water.  IBM’s Zurich Research Lab reports that, without cooling, today’s chips could reach a surface temperature higher than the sun; cooling chips at this magnitude requires the development of increasingly efficient cooling systems.  Water is 4,000 times more efficient than air, reducing data center energy consumption by 40%.  Furthermore, IBM claims that the heated water waste produced by the chip-cooling process in data centers could be reused- as a supply of hot water, or to heat homes or swimming pools.  Check out this short video explaining the process.  While the amount of water needed to cool these centers is not supplied, the reuse of the water could effectively cancel out the consumption.  Rather, a positive gain of speed, efficiency, and reduced energy consumption make this a compelling technological possibility.

This technology focuses on supercomputers and data centers, but water-cooling has also been successfully used in personal computers. Overclockers have been DIY water-cooling for a while, and this blog is just an example of one overclocker who has been successfully water-cooling using pool water since 2006. If individuals can accomplish feats like this, it will be interesting to see how giant data center networks can integrate into a future of more efficient, sustainable computing.