A cost analysis and value chain analysis of data centres’ cooling requirements points to a substantial rise in the number and size of data centres, with growth only partially mitigated by continued efficiency improvements at both the hardware and software level.
The report, by market intelligence company IDTechEx, offers a comprehensive commercial landscape analysis, including the data centre cooling value chain, partnerships between players across the value chain, and the competitive landscape.
Kao Data high performance computing date centre, Harlow
Author Yulin Wang, senior technology analyst at IDTechEx, describes the data centre cooling value chain as “long, complicated, and chaotic, consisting of multiple stakeholders”.
Data centre cooling happens on multiple levels including chip and server level, as well as the rack and facility level. The cooling is either air cooling (aircon) or liquid cooling. Liquid cooling can be classified into direct-to-chip/cold plate cooling, spray cooling, and immersion cooling.
IDTechEx’s report delivers an in-depth volume and market size forecast for direct-to-liquid cooling, categorised by components such as CDUs, quick disconnects, manifolds, cold plate systems – including cold plates, hoses, pipes, and fluid distribution networks within servers – and air cooling components for consumer options. It also offers a detailed forecast for immersion cooling, segmented by immersion tanks, immersion coolant, CDUs, and related piping, valves, and monitoring systems.
Data centres use considerable amounts of power – and AI demands a lot of electricity
Additionally, the forecast is further divided by single-phase and two-phase cooling technologies.
Technological barriers of different cooling methods, cost analysis of players in different value chain positions, value chain consolidation potentials, and a roadmap for the future cooling strategy are described and evaluated in ‘Thermal Management for Data Centers 2025-2035: Technologies, Markets, and Opportunities’. For instance, aircon uses convection – moving air around – to cool the servers. But as data cent users strive to maximize rack space utilisation by densely packing servers (typically 1U servers), the air gaps between servers become narrower, which reduces the efficiency of air cooling. The costs of cooling could soon become exorbitant. Data centres currently account for around 1 per cent of global electricity consumption – and no one wants to see that percentile rise.
Details here.