
Two years after he spoke at a conference detailing his ambitious vision for cooling tomorrow's data centers, Ali Heydari and his team won a $5 million grant to go build it.
It was the largest of 15 awards in May from the U.S. Department of Energy. The DoE program, called COOLERCHIPS, received more than 100 applications from a who's who list of computer architects and researchers.
This is another example of how we're rearchitecting the data center, said Ali Heydari, a distinguished engineer at NVIDIA who leads the project and helped deploy more than a million servers in previous roles at Baidu, Twitter and Facebook.
We celebrated on Slack because the team is all over the U.S., said Jeremy Rodriguez, who once built hyperscale liquid-cooling systems and now manages NVIDIA's data center engineering team.
A Historic Shift The project is ambitious and comes at a critical moment in the history of computing.
Processors are expected to generate up to an order of magnitude more heat as Moore's law hits the limits of physics, but the demands on data centers continue to soar.
Soon, today's air-cooled systems won't be able to keep up. Current liquid-cooling techniques won't be able to handle the more than 40 watts per square centimeter researchers expect future silicon in data centers will need to dissipate.
So, Heydari's group defined an advanced liquid-cooling system.
Their approach promises to cool a data center packed into a mobile container, even when it's placed in an environment up to 40 degrees Celsius and is drawing 200kW - 25x the power of today's server racks.
It will cost at least 5% less and run 20% more efficiently than today's air-cooled approaches. It's much quieter and has a smaller carbon footprint, too.
That's a great achievement for our engineers who are very smart folks, he said, noting part of their mission is to make people aware of the changes ahead.
A Radical Proposal The team's solution combines two technologies never before deployed in tandem.
First, chips will be cooled with cold plates whose coolant evaporates like sweat on the foreheads of hard-working processors, then cools to condense and re-form as liquid. Second, entire servers, with their lower power components, will be encased in hermetically sealed containers and immersed in coolant.
Novel solution: Servers will be bathed in coolants as part of the project. They will use a liquid common in refrigerators and car air conditioners, but not yet used in data centers.
Three Giant Steps The three-year project sets annual milestones - component tests next year, a partial rack test a year later, and a full system tested and delivered at the end.
Icing the cake, the team will create a full digital twin of the system using NVIDIA Omniverse, an open development platform for building and operating metaverse applications.
The NVIDIA team consists of about a dozen thermal, power, mechanical and systems engineers, some dedicated to creating the digital twin. They have help from seven partners:
Binghamton and Villanova universities in analysis, testing and simulation
BOYD Corp. for the cold plates
Durbin Group for the pumping system
Honeywell to help select the refrigerant
Sandia National Laboratory in reliability assessment, and
Vertiv Corp. in heat rejection
We're extending relationships we've built for years, and each group brings an array of engineers, said Heydari.
Of course, it's hard work, too.
For instance, Mohammed Tradat, a former Binghamton researcher who now heads an NVIDIA data center mechanical engineering group, had a sleepless night working on the grant application, but it's a labor of love for all of us, he said.
Heydari said he never imagined the team would be bringing its ideas to life when he delivered a talk on them in late 2021.
No other company would allow us to build an organization that could do this kind of work - we're making history and that's amazing, said Rodriguez.
See how digital twins, built in Omniverse, help optimize the design of a data center in the video below.
Picture at top: Gathered recently at NVIDIA headquarters are (from left) Scott Wallace (NVIDIA), Greg Strover (Vertiv), Vivien Lecoustre (DoE), Vladimir Troy (NVIDIA), Peter Debock (COOLERCHIPS program director), Rakesh Radhakrishnan (DoE), Joseph Marsala (Durbin Group), Nigel Gore (Vertiv), and Jeremy Rodriguez, Bahareh Eslami, Manthos Economou, Harold Miyamura and Ali Heydari (all of NVIDIA).
Most recent headlines
04/12/2023
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, announced the release of Dalet Cut, the cloud-native, lightning-fast multimedia a...
02/07/2023
Our robust, comparable data provides trusted insights and gives media owners, buyers and planners the power to trade confidently.
ABC members and data subscrib...
02/07/2023
We'll be releasing The next set of ABC audited consumer media data covering the period January to December 2022 on Tuesday 21st February at noon.
When rele...
02/07/2023
We'll be releasing The next set of ABC audited consumer media data covering the period January to December 2022 on Tuesday 21st February at noon.
When rele...
27/05/2023
NOVI, Mich. ENCO will feature the ENCO RUSHWORKS PTX Model 3 Pro robotic pan/tilt head used in a variety of production settings, including newsrooms and sports,...
27/05/2023
DALLAS Wooden Camera is now accepting orders for the newly released Ultra Handle System, a new handle system with multiple 3/8-inch-16 and -inch-20 mounting po...
27/05/2023
Kids Eat Free Wednesday, Dollar Dog Night, Ripken the Bat Dog & Kids Run the Bas...
27/05/2023
American Born Chinese, about the trials of a regular American teen whose life changes when he befriends the son of a mythological god, debuts on Disney Plus May...
27/05/2023
Season two of fantasy drama The Wheel of Time premieres on Prime Video September 1. Based on the Robert Jordan fantasy books, The Wheel of Time sees a humble fa...
27/05/2023
Paramount Plus has ordered a second season of The Family Stallone, a reality series about Sylvester Stallone, wife Jennifer Flavin Stallone and daughters Sophia...
27/05/2023
Gray Television is suing the Federal Communications Commission over its decision to fine the broadcaster over half a million dollars for an affiliation move in ...
27/05/2023
Stage production Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical, a spoof on the Netflix hit drama, offers live streams of the show May 27 and May 28. Set in Hawkins, Indian...
27/05/2023
Cineverse, known until recently as Cinedigm, said it reached a new distribution agreement with Sling Freestream, which will carry Cineverse's Crime Hunters ...
27/05/2023
Season two of Duck Family Treasure debuts on Fox Nation Sunday, June 11. There are five episodes, and the Robertson family of Duck Dynasty fame stars. The serie...
27/05/2023
Former TV writer Patty Lin takes some shots at the industry with her memoir End ...
27/05/2023
Gomora' actors don't know why telenovela is cancelled Gomora' actress Connie Chiume and more stars from the Mzansi Magic show say they don't kno...
27/05/2023
Prison life: The daily routine of an inmate at PollsmoorFawaaz Adendorff was incarcerated at Pollsmoor Correctional Centre and participated in the restorative j...
27/05/2023
Sjava and Big Zulu: Get tickets to see the Inkabi Zezwe TourA performance like no other. Get your tickets for the Inkabi Zezwe Tour to Pretoria, a Big Zulu and ...
27/05/2023
African Proverb of the day: 27 May 2023An African proverb reflects and reveals a community's culture that provides a glimpse into its value systems, beliefs...
27/05/2023
Poem of the day: The Snakes At SchoolA poem a day keeps the soul awake! For the most soulful, authentically African poetry on the internet, check out Poem of th...
26/05/2023
Andr vredal directed Trollhunter, a horror fantasy shot in found-footage style that premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival....
26/05/2023
Photo credit: BFA/Darian DiCianno/Deonte Lee/Matteo Prandoni
New York City residents and visitors alike have made countless memories in each of Central Park...
26/05/2023
EditShare Supports Every Storyteller at BroadcastAsia 2023
Scalable storage and content management on premises, at remote locations and in the cloud
Boston, ...
26/05/2023
Brightcove has hired Teresa Tang as senior vice president, head of Analytics, Data Science and Data Engineering. She takes on the position after roles at Master...
26/05/2023
COLUMBIA, Md. LTN managed its 1 millionth live feed earlier in May when it delivered a soccer game between Arsenal de Sarand and Gimnasia La Plata in Argentina...
26/05/2023
Company expands dubbing and accessibility capabilities to Spain, Germany, and France
Visual Data, a worldwide provider of localization services and end-to-end...
26/05/2023
Alum Featured on NPR's 2023 Tiny Desk Contest Winner Wonder Eye by Little Moon, which includes Chris Shemwell B.M. 20 on drums, was the judges top choice ...
26/05/2023
NEW YORK Award-winning local news executive Kari Patey has been named vice president of producer development at CBS Stations. She will report to CBS Stations pr...
26/05/2023
Designed for Professional Users, Uploaded Videos are Returned as Professional-Quality, Interactive 3D Holograms with Audio, Accessible Anywhere; Free Trial Avai...
26/05/2023
TSL invites BroadcastAsia 2023 attendees to visit stand 6H1-12 to experience its new line of high-performance TSL Audio, Power Management and Control solutions ...
26/05/2023
Wooden Camera announces the new Ultra Handle System: a new handle system which is available to order now includes a multitude of -16 and 1 /4 -20 mounting po...
26/05/2023
Artificial intelligence video technology company Pixellot has unveiled its latest AI-automated camera, the Pixellot Show 3....
26/05/2023
SEOUL, South Korea Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA) and Public Media Venture Group (PMVG) have announced a two-year collaboration to examine and impleme...
26/05/2023
The new 7 ARRI CCM-1 provides full camera control for ALEXA 35 and ALEXA Mini LF and has been developed with partner SmallHD
By TVBEurope Staff
Published: M...
26/05/2023
Tim Baldwin, VP product at Zixi, explains his journey into the media industry and the varying qualities required of a product manager
By TVBEurope Staff
Pub...
26/05/2023
Oct 19, 2022
Trading update 3Q22
INSIDE INFORMATION - REGULATED INFORMATION
Strong sales growth across divisions
Kortrijk, Belgium, 19 October 2022,...
26/05/2023
Awards presented to WRAL News and WRAL Documentary Teams
The Radio Television D...
26/05/2023
Bulls front office staff & Wool E. Bull host cooking class at DBAP to promote he...
26/05/2023
Longtime WRAL News Anchor Debra Morgan continues extraordinary run; Journalist Ashley Rowe joins WRAL News Team
WRAL, part of Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC...
26/05/2023
The River live updates: Ndumiso and Bangizwe finally get a breakthroughWhat's new on The River? Find out HERE! Stay informed on what's trending on your ...
26/05/2023
Uzalo live updates: Nkunzi's luncheon is crowded by unwanted visitorsWhat's new on Uzalo? Find out HERE! Stay informed on what's trending on your fa...
26/05/2023
Tonight on Gqeberha: Ntando's abalone smuggling mission goes wrongDon't miss tonight's episode of Gqeberha: The Empire, and watch the latest episode...
26/05/2023
Manifest' season four: Netflix drops part two trailerThe final journey is almost here! Netflix shares Manifest' season four part two trailer ahead of t...
26/05/2023
SKEEM SAAM: Tonight's episode, 26 May 2023 [VIDEO]Missed an episode of Skeem Saam? No problem! Watch all the latest episodes of Skeem Saam soapie right here...
26/05/2023
7de Laan live updates: Zee begs Werner not to tell Uys about his indiscretionWhat's new on 7de Laan? Find out HERE! Stay informed on what's trending on ...
26/05/2023
HOUSE OF ZWIDE: Episode for 26 May 2023 [VIDEO]Missed an episode of House of Zwide? No problem! Watch all the latest episodes of House of Zwide soapie right her...
26/05/2023
Skeem Saam live updates: Tongues are wagging about Ntswaki's whereaboutsWhat's new on Skeem Saam? Find out HERE! Stay informed on what's trending on...
26/05/2023
SCANDAL: Tonight's episode, 26 May 2023 [VIDEO]Missed an episode of Scandal ? No problem! Watch all the latest episodes of Scandal soapie right here. Don...
26/05/2023
House of Zwide live updates: The doctor has an update on SenzoWhat's new on House of Zwide? Find out HERE! Stay informed on what's trending on your favo...
26/05/2023
UZALO: Tonight's episode, 26 May 2023 [VIDEO]Missed an episode of uzalo? No problem! Just watch all the latest episodes of uzalo soapie right here, don'...