Data center thermal management technologies continue to evolve to serve new demands of both large and small (edge) data centers. Colo, cloud, enterprise, and edge facilities are utilizing a variety of cooling options — chilled water, pumped refrigerant plus aisle, row, and rack-level air or liquid cooling. Depending on the density of applications within a data center, more than one method of cooling may be in play. Regardless of the method of cooling selected, advanced thermal controls have become the critical “glue” that brings just the right temperature and airflow to racks to ensure uptime, maximize efficiency, and reduce operating costs.
The increasing use of high-density applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and high-performance computing and data analytics is also creating new cooling demands for existing data centers. This is leading to hybrid cooling solutions, where more than one cooling technology is applied to provide specific rack or even chip-level cooling.