A new water cooling system makes computers use their heat more efficient way to heat buildings.
They have been used to make computer models of climate change, to anticipate economic trends, and simulate the inherent complexity of proteins. However, IBM has in mind a new application for high-performance computers: heating buildings.
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| Clusters of computers capable of heating buildings. |
Thanks to a new water cooled system installed on-chip developed by the company, the thermal energy from a cluster of computer processors can be efficiently recycled to provide hot water for an office, says Bruno Michel, director of packaging thermal advanced in the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich, Switzerland. The goal, he says, is to improve energy efficiency of large groups of computers and reduce the environmental impact caused.
A pilot scheme based on a computer system with this technology is expected to achieve saving 30 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually-the equivalent of a 85 percent reduction in carbon footprint. A novel microfluidic capillary network within a heat dissipation plate adheres to the surface of each chip within the group of computers, allowing the water to be pumped only mismamente micron semiconductor material. Despite its proximity to the circuit, there is no risk of leakage, says Michel, because the capillaries are hermetically sealed. By causing the water to pass so close to the chip, heat can be dissipated more efficiently. The water heated to 60 ° C, is passed through a heat exchanger to generate heat which will ultimately be distributed to other areas.
IBM has employed several years to develop this technology of microfluidics cooled, and plans to test it with the Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland, Zurich. 10 teraflops cluster consisting of two IBM BladeCenter servers will be used by the Laboratory of Computer Science and Engineering University to generate models of the dynamics of fluids that are needed for nanotechnology research. The water will be pumped into the heating system of the university, which will help heat 60 buildings. "This is the first large-scale system," says Michel. "It has a size about 20 times less than that of a typical data center." The ultimate goal of this technology, he says, it is to help combat the heat problems faced by data centers large.
Up to 50 percent of the energy consumed by modern data centers is spent on cooling the air. Most of the heat is wasted because it simply is thrown into the atmosphere. There have been few initiatives to recycle the heat generated by conventional data centers. For example, a data center with 9 floors and 18,500 square meters hosting company Telehouse is building in London will be able to provide heating to nearby offices. Other companies, which includes IBM, have excess heat used for heating greenhouses or pools. However, reusing waste heat is quite expensive because the temperatures that can be harvested are relatively low, says Frank Brand, director of data center operations of Dutch engineering company Imtech. "You can only get from 30-35 degrees Celsius," he says.
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