IBM's latest supercomputer uses a water cooling system that cuts air conditioning units by 80 percent and reduces the energy for cooling a data centre by 40 percent. The new Power 575 supercomputer, equipped with IBM's latest POWER6 microprocessor, relies on water-chilled copper plates above each microprocessor to remove heat from the electronics.
With 448 processor cores per rack, the Power 575 offers more than five times the performance of its predecessor. And thanks to advanced water cooling and chip efficiencies, the supercomputer is three times more energy efficient per rack.
IBM scientists estimate that water can be up to 4,000-times more effective than air in cooling computer systems and are researching more ways to take advantage of that. Scientists at the IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory recently presented a concept of a “zero-emission” data centre. It utilises a water-cooling system embedded on a chip that captures the water at its hottest and pipes it off the chip for reuse in heating a building or for hot water. IBM researchers are also working on getting water inside the chip. Once captured there, the water can be routed out of the computer and pumped into the heating system for re-use.
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IBM Turns on the Water for Energy-Efficient Supercomputer (press release) (US)