Researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new cooling technology that could make data centers far more energy efficient.
The team designed advanced copper “cold plates” that cool computer chips more effectively while using much less power than traditional cooling systems.
The study, published in Cell Reports Physical Science, describes how engineers combined mathematical algorithms with advanced 3D printing to create a new type of liquid-cooling system.
The researchers say the technology could greatly reduce the massive amount of electricity currently used to cool modern data centers.
Today’s computer chips are becoming more powerful every year, especially in systems used for artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and online services. But stronger chips also generate much more heat. Cooling that heat has become one of the biggest challenges in computer design.
Most data centers still rely heavily on air conditioning and large fans to keep servers cool.
However, air is not very efficient at removing heat from high-performance chips. Researchers warn that as data centers continue expanding, their energy demands could place increasing pressure on power grids.
By 2028, data centers may consume as much as 12% of the total electricity used in the United States.
The research team believes liquid cooling offers a better solution. In direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems, a metal plate called a cold plate sits directly on top of the chip. Cool liquid flows through tiny structures inside the plate, carrying heat away much more efficiently than air.
To improve performance, the researchers redesigned the tiny metal fins inside the cold plates using a method called topology optimization.
A computer algorithm repeatedly adjusted the fin shapes to find designs that maximize cooling while minimizing the energy needed to pump liquid through the system.
The final designs looked very different from traditional straight fins. Instead, they featured complex jagged edges and pointed shapes that improved heat transfer and reduced resistance to liquid flow.
Because these intricate designs would be difficult to produce with normal manufacturing methods, the researchers partnered with Fabric8 to use a specialized 3D-printing process called electrochemical additive manufacturing, or ECAM.
Unlike standard metal 3D printing, which melts metal powder, ECAM builds structures layer by layer through electrochemical plating. This allowed the team to create highly detailed cold plates made from pure copper, a material known for excellent heat conduction.
Tests showed the optimized copper cold plates provided up to 32% better cooling performance than conventional designs. They also reduced pressure drop by up to 68%, meaning less energy was needed to move coolant through the system.
The energy savings at the scale of a full data center could be enormous. According to the researchers, a 1-gigawatt data center currently using air cooling may require around 550 megawatts of additional power just for cooling. With the new cold plates, cooling demand could drop to only about 11 megawatts.
The team says the same design approach could eventually help cool many other electronic devices and industrial systems that generate large amounts of heat.
Source: KSR.
