Equinix expands liquid cooling support further 45 metropolitan areasto power compute-intensive workloads like artificial intelligence.
Plans call for expansion of cooling support, such as the direct-to-chip, in more than 100 of its International Business Exchange data centers. The novelty adds to practices already consolidated by Equinix in the liquid-to-air cooling sector, through rack heat exchangers, now active in almost all of its IBXs. This expansion will enable more businesses to use more efficient cooling technologies to support high-intensity computing environments that support intensive workloads such as artificial intelligence (AI).
Sean Graham, Research Director, Cloud to Edge Datacenter Trends, di IDC
We have seen exponential growth in demand for data- and compute-intensive applications, such as artificial intelligence. The hardware needed to run these new applications is increasing in density within data centers and can no longer be cooled efficiently with traditional techniques. We are seeing growing demand for liquid-cooled solutions from enterprises, and it is essential that data center providers, like Equinix, are able to support this new generation of cooling solutions.
Through the support of liquid cooling in over 45 locations in all major global cities, including Milan, London, Paris, Barcelona and Munich, customers will be able to deploy liquid cooling solutions to meet mission-critical needs in the markets that matter most to them. Equinix offers direct access to the Equinix Platform ecosystem of partners and suppliers. By continuing this approach, Equinix is committed to empowering digital leaders to continuously evolve their liquid-cooling design projects.
Tiffany Osias, vice president of Global Colocation at Equinix
Liquid-cooling is revolutionizing the way data centers cool the powerful, high-density hardware that supports emerging technologies, and Equinix is at the center of this innovation. We have been helping companies build major liquid-cooled installations in a wide range of sizes and densities for years. Equinix has the expertise to support the modern and complex IT implementations that applications like AI require.
Equinix supports leading liquid cooling technologies, including direct-to-chip and rear-door heat exchangers, so customers can leverage the most efficient solutions. Additionally, Equinix offers a vendor-neutral approach to allow customers to use their preferred hardware vendor in their deployments.
Direct-to-chip is a unique approach that leverages a cold plate placed on top of the chip inside the server. The cold plate is equipped with liquid supply and return channels, which allow the technical cooling fluid to flow through the plate, carrying heat away from the chip.
In this way, direct-to-chip enabled servers can be installed in a standard IT cabinet like traditional air-cooled equipment, while being cooled in an innovative way. Rear heat exchangers use a cooling coil and fans to capture heat from air-cooled IT equipment. They are mounted directly on customer cabinets and are therefore able to handle higher cooling loads than traditional cooling.
Steve Walton, CEO di CoolIT Systems Inc
For next-generation chips and other AI infrastructure, traditional air cooling approaches are not sufficient. Liquid cooling can deliver better performance, saving energy and helping data centers operate more efficiently. Equinix’s state-of-the-art data centers offer customers an ideal environment to deploy CoolIT Systems’ innovative liquid cooling technologies, ensuring optimal resiliency, energy efficiency and reliability for mission-critical digital infrastructures.Erez Freibach, co-founder and CEO of ZutaCore
Increasingly effective cooling solutions are essential for data centers to keep pace with the rapidly evolving computing world. We believe liquid cooling has a critical role to play in supporting the next wave of digital infrastructure.
ZutaCore has partnered with Equinix at its Co-Innovation Facility and Equinix Metal deployments to help develop, operate and test the next generation of liquid cooling solutions at scale. We are excited to see Equinix expand the number of liquid cooling-enabled data centers as we continue to optimize customer workloads with waterless liquid cooling to achieve a carbon-neutral data industry.