A chilled future for HPC


Robert Roe talks to cooling experts


to find out what innovation lies ahead for HPC users


and maximising the efficiency and performance of cooling technology – becomes paramount to ensuring that the cost of HPC resources does not become prohibitively expensive. To meet the ambitious targets


A


for exascale computing, many cooling companies are exploring optimisations and innovative methods that will redefine cooling architectures for the next generation of HPC systems. Here, some of the prominent cooling technology providers give their views on the current state and future prospects of cooling technology in HPC.


What has been the biggest development in cooling technology over the last 5 to 10 years? Rich Whitmore, president and CEO of Motivair, argues that the migration of cooling systems back to source and more specifically, at the rack level, is one of the largest changes in cooling technology: ‘Tis has been driven by ever- increasing server and chip heat densities and the more dynamic/ rapid shiſts between high and low server workloads on a minute-by- minute basis.’ Tom Michalski, senior FAE at Boston, says: ‘We have been


s the HPC industry collectively approaches exascale, the importance of energy efficiency –


using modular, easy to use, direct contact liquid cooling (DCLC) in partnership with CoolIT Systems over the last 5 to 10 years. Te benefits of our solutions, such as the Boston ANNA Pascal – as recently featured as part of a liquid cooled cluster at the ISC Student Cluster Competition – are that we are able to maximise server performance and power efficiency in a variety of environments. ‘Te Boston ANNA Pascal


cluster was situated in a mini-rack within the ISC exhibition room – it was mid-June with temperatures in their 30s, there was no direct air conditioning, and the cluster competition booths were situated behind floor to ceiling glass windows, so you can imagine the cooling challenge that we faced. ‘Te competition only allowed


for 3000W of power – so liquid cooling enabled us to decrease the number of fans per server, which are power-hungry, ensuring that we were sending power to components that would benefit more.’ Peter Hopton, founder


of Iceotope, focused on the development of advanced coolants – specifically Engineered


8 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD ChilledDoor rack cooling system @scwmagazine l www.scientific-computing.com


Fluorocoolants and Liquid Fluoroplastics and their impact on the HPC market. ‘Large open baths can use about


5 to 10 litres of coolant (usually oil) per CPU, whereas at Iceotope we’ve constantly been innovating in this area, in 2012, we were at two litres per CPU, now we’re at 0.8 litres per CPU. With some projects that use liquid cooling optimised electronics, such as our work on the EuroExa project at 0.32 litres per Quad CPU node,’ said Hopton. While this type of cooling


solution has been seen as expensive in the past, innovations are expected to reduce this cost considerably. Tis should bring the technology more in line with established HPC cooling technologies. ‘At these volumes, we can have a


low-cost, serviceable, safe system that is Total-Liquid-Cooled, occupies a small footprint and can accept high inlet temperatures that enable the elimination of chiller plant. Tis brings about a lower cost of infrastructure and a smaller


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