IBM partnered with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich to develop a new type of water-cooled supercomputer that will allow universities to use the excess heat.
The innovative system is called Aquasar and will decrease the carbon footprint up to 80%, saving 30 tons of carbon dioxide every ear.
As statistics show, 50% of the carbon footprint of data centers cooled by air is caused by the powering system in charge with preventing the processors from overheating. Using the water-cooling alternative at the chip level, and reusing the direct heat, the energy consumption will be reduced by 40%. This is the key feature of Aquasar, which will start operating next year at the ETH Zurich.
It will be composed of two IBM BladeCenter servers equipped with liquid coolers and will enable 10 Teraflops peak performance.
They chose the water-cooling technology because of the water’s ability of capturing heat 4,000 times more efficiently than air, allowing experts to use a 60-degree water temperature to maintain optimal chip temperatures.
In order to use the excess heat for the university’s heating system, the cooling system of the supercomputer will be developed as a closed circuit where the water is heated by the chips at constant intervals and cooled as it passes through the passive heat exchanger. This way, the removed heat reaches the university’s heating system.
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