The public backlash against data centers has highlighted their water and energy consumption, and Nvidia is now emphasizing its claim that its Rubin generation reference design for fully liquid-cooled data centers has “reduced significant power usage and nearly all water usage.” Still, it does not address all concerns regarding AI data centers, including those under construction, or the power generation requirements of large facilities. Also, gizmodo Nvidia’s blog post does not mention the cost of building this style of data center and its use of less efficient air cooling, but notes that “all cloud providers and data center operators… [Rubin] We are in the process of transitioning. ”
The increased efficiency is due to the AI server running at temperatures as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius). In a recent report, Amazon similarly touted improved thermal resistance as part of its efforts to improve the efficiency of its primarily air-cooled data centers.
In Nvidia’s system, “heat is captured directly on the chip and transported through a liquid loop operating at a much higher temperature, allowing outdoor dry coolers to efficiently reject heat for most of the year” and being much more flexible when it comes to ambient temperatures.
According to Josh Parker, head of sustainability at Nvidia, the reference design reduces water usage “to nearly zero, or up to 100%, from the approximately 2.6 million gallons per megawatt per year of traditional cooling tower-based systems.”
