The Impacts Of Liquid Cooling On AI Datacenters

 

When we think of AI, hear about it, or even use it, we often think of ChatGPT.  While in a way this is correct, Generative AI (from which ChatGPT is derived from) is just a subset of AI.  For example, there are other areas as well, such as Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Neural Networks, Large Language Models, Natural Language Processing, etc.

But yet, there is yet another area of AI which will receives almost no public attention whatsoever, and those are the companies that own the datacenters which house the servers to host the AI applications.  But a point of clarification is needed here.  Although many of the AI applications are now SaaS  based, and in fact, you can even create and host your own AI app on Microsoft Azure – you still need a physical server to host all of this software.

Because of the huge growth in AI, there in turn has been an increased demand for datacenters.  In fact, if you listen to a business channel like CNBC, you will see them even talk about the stocks of some of these companies that own these datacenters.  For example, some names that come to mind here include Vertiv, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Iron Mountain, etc.

The demand for datacenters is going to be red hot in the coming years.  In fact, it is predicted that the entire AI market will be worth well over $1.3 Billon in just revenue alone.  This represents a staggering growth rate of over 37% from today’s numbers.

(SOURCE:  https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/artificial-intelligence-market-74851580.html)

Given all of the servers and networking technologies that a datacenter has to contain, the temperature in them can get very hot.  As a result, these physical infrastructures need to be cooled on a 24 X 7 X 365 basis throughout the entire year.  But, despite the profits that are being made, the costs of cooling, take a big chunk out of that – it can be almost as much as 40% for a datacenter’s electricity bill. 

(SOURCE:  https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366568452/Datacentre-operators-face-capacity-planning-challenges-as-AI-usage-soars)

Because of these staggering costs, many datacenters are now opting for another form of cooling rather than the traditional ones.  This makes use of water, as now referred to as “Liquid Cooling”.  At least here in the United States, the datacenters rely upon a freshwater supply for cooling – this is the same source that provides us with our drinking water.  Although we think that water is a plentiful resource that we will never run out of, consider these statistics:

*The typical datacenter uses at least 1-5 million gallons of water, on a daily basis.

(SOURCE:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/04/25/data-centers-drought-water-use/

*Almost a third of the world’s servers are located here in the United States.

(SOURCE:  https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/ebot_data_centers_around_the_world.pdf)

But now, we are facing an imminent water crisis, brought on by two fronts:

*The sheer amount of water shortages that are now happening because of global warming and an increased demand for more drinking water by our population.

*The increased number of Cyberattacks against our Critical Infrastructure, namely that of our water supply lines.  More details on these kinds of attacks can be seen at the link below:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/01/politics/us-water-utilities-hack/index.html

So now the trick is for datacenters to start to rely upon other means in which to procure their water resources.  Considerations have been given to the options:

*Using sewer water, and even water from the oceans.

*The deployment of more advanced freshwater tracking technologies to get an accurate view of just how much fresh water is actually being consumed.  More information about this can be found at the link below:

https://datacenters.lbl.gov/water-efficiency#:~:text=Key%20best%20practices%20for%20water,Evaluate%20chillers%20for%20replacement

*Procuring grants and other sources of funding from the Federal Government to look at alternate means of using less fresh water, but yet will maintain the current levels of cooling that are needed by a datacenter.  In fact, the Department of Energy) just announced a grant of $40 million in this regard.  Details on this can be seen at the link below:

https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-40-million-more-efficient-cooling-data-centers

*Building out the datacenters in areas of the United States where the temperature is cooler, and there is an abundant supply of other forms of water, such as water from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, or even in the Gulf of Mexico, and the surrounding Great Lakes regions. 

But from the standpoint of Cybersecurity, more effort and initiative has to be taken to shore up the defenses on our water supply lines.  This is not just a local or state issue, rather, this is something that must be addressed and fully funded by the Federal Government.  But it is important to keep in mind that our Critical Infrastructure is made up entirely of technology and equipment that was made back in the 1970s.

In fact, many of the vendors that made these parts are probably no longer in existence.  So, it is not just a matter of ripping out the old stuff and putting new ones in to help solve the Cyber problem.  At the present time,  this simply will not work.  The only option we have is to add more layers of security, but this has to be done very carefully, in order to ensure that whatever is deployed will be interoperable and compatible with the old stuff.

My Thoughts On This:

So now the big question is:  “What if my datacenter runs out of a fresh water supply, or it is hit with a Cyberattack?”  The fundamental answer to this comes down to proper planning.  You need to have an Incident Response Plan, a Disaster Recovery Plan, and a Business Continuity Plan to address this.  Two areas of focus should be:

*Sourcing a secondary source of freshwater for your datacenter in case of any interruptions.

*Beefing up your lines of defenses in case you are indeed hit with a Cyberattack, and your cooling systems were the primary target.

So as you can see, in order for all of this to work, it is going to take a huge partnership with the private and public sectors, and even that of academia in order to make all of this work. But it can happen, over time, which is something we do not have the luxury of right now.

Finally for more details on how our precious water supply systems can be further protected, click on the link below:

https://www.scmagazine.com/perspective/heres-how-we-can-make-water-utilities-more-secure