The use of energy has been a limiting factor for big tech companies that train AI models or deal with massive amounts of data. NVIDIA says it has a solution to this problem and this is through the use of liquid-cooled graphics cards.
Company Announces Its A100 Compute Card Liquid-Cooled Version
NVIDIA announced its A100 compute card liquid-cooled version at Computex which reportedly consumers less energy than the normal air-cooled graphics cards. As per NVIDIA, the power consumption is 30% less when using the liquid-cooled version.
According to the story by The Verge, NVIDIA isn't going to release just this singular model and says its roadmap already includes more liquid-cooled server cards. The company also hints on bringing the tech to other systems.
Data Centers Reportedly Use 40% of Its Energy on Cooling
One potential implication of the liquid-cooling, as noted by NVIDIA, could be things like in-car systems and other applications. The article notes that the recent incident with overheating Tesla chips show how complicated the liquid cooling process can be.
NVIDIA says that there could be a huge impact if the amount of energy needed "to perform complex computations" could be reduced. The company also noted that 40% of the energy used by data centers all goes to cooling.
NVIDIA Says Data Centers Use as Much as 1% of Total World's Energy
The company notes that the data centers are also responsible for using "one percent of the world's electricity" adding if this could be reduced, this could make a huge impact. The Verge, however, notes that graphics cards remain just a fraction of the whole equation.
The publication states that storage, CPUs, and networking equipment also need cooling as well. NVIDIA says that GPU-accelerated systems with liquid cooling could beat "CPU-only servers on AI and other high-performance tasks" when it comes to efficiency.
Why is Liquid-Cooling More Efficient Compared to Regular Air-Cooled Graphics Cards
As per Asetek, when warm liquid is gathered, it would be easier to redirect it somewhere it can cool off compared. This makes it easier when compared to cooling down air or trying to increase the total airflow.
Aside from energy efficiency, the article by The Verge notes another important benefit which is how it takes up less space. This makes it easier for liquid-cooling users to fit more in the same amount of space compared to air-cooling systems.
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Microsoft Placed a Whole Data Center in the Ocean to Use Less Energy and Less Water
The move by NVIDIA to push the use of liquid-cooling in order to reduce energy use comes at a time when "a lot of companies are considering the amounts of energy their servers use." Other tech companies like Microsoft, however, have already started experimenting with liquid-cooling.
Microsoft even decided to place a whole data center in the ocean. This was done in an attempt to not only use less energy but also to use less water.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian B.
