STOCKHOLM/LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) – The global boom in data centers is creating a key challenge for the industry: how to keep them cool, as companies outsource information storage and increase their use of energy-intensive artificial intelligence.
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The issue was a cooling issue at a data center operated by Dallas-based CyrusOne, which operates more than 55 centers in the United States, Europe, and Japan.
CyrusOne announced Friday that its engineering team is stationed at its data center near Chicago to bring its cooling system back online.
What causes fever?
High-performance AI and cloud servers that process data require large amounts of power and generate intense heat that traditional air cooling systems often cannot adequately cool.
Data centers have racks of servers stacked on top of each other that are always turned on and consume power. Once heated, continuous cooling is required.
“The chips in these data centers have to be kept within a certain temperature range, otherwise they will malfunction or turn off,” said Daniel Muton, a partner in the infrastructure, energy and natural resources practice at law firm Slaughter & May.
What can data center operators do about it?
Liquid cooling is 3,000 times more efficient at removing heat than air, so more data centers are considering using water or specialized coolants instead of air cooling.
However, liquid cooling can present its own challenges, including potential leaks, corrosion, and the need for specialized maintenance. It can also consume a lot of water.
Companies are looking for ways to reduce external coolant. Last year, Microsoft announced a new data center design that consumes no water for cooling.
The company says its new technology reuses water through a closed loop, circulating it between servers and cooling equipment to dissipate heat without requiring new supplies.
There are also systems that capture and reuse waste heat from data centers.
How common are outages related to cooling issues?
Muton said data center outages are generally “extremely rare” because carriers have contractual requirements to keep data centers online almost all the time.
“Sometimes you need to be more than 99.99% awake,” he says.
While a total outage is fairly rare, specific issues that directly impact the cooling system are “even more rare,” Muton said. “Obviously the thing I hear most about is the power issue,” he said.
Wave of contracts signed for data center cooling
Global demand for data centers is sparking a wave of deal deals across the industry as companies race to build capacity to meet surging power and cooling needs.
Law firm White & Case estimates that up to 40% of a data center’s total energy consumption goes into data center cooling, making data centers big business.
Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Lucy Raitano. Additional reporting by Toby Sterling and Leo Marchandon. Written by Adam Jordan. Editing: Jean Harvey
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