Intel has announced two new investments to create more sustainable data centre technology solutions.
First, Intel unveiled plans to invest more than $700-million for a 200 000-square-foot research and development mega lab focused on data centre technology innovation and addressing areas such as heating, cooling and water usage.
Additionally, Intel introduced the technology industry’s first open intellectual property (open IP) immersion liquid cooling solution and reference design.
With the initial design proof of concept initiated in Taiwan, Intel aims to simplify and accelerate the implementation of immersion liquid cooling solutions throughout the ecosystem globally.
“Intel’s dedication to its global partnerships is evident with these announcements today,” says Sandra Rivera, Intel executive vice-president and GM of the Datacentre and AI Group. “The future of the data centre and data centre design is based on innovative and sustainable technologies and practices, and I’m proud of the work we’re doing every day to help make a sustainable future a reality.”
The new mega lab will be focused on areas such as immersion cooling, water usage effectiveness and heat recapture and reuse. Construction on the lab will begin this year at the Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro, Oregon, with opening expected in late 2023.
Additionally, the lab will qualify, test and enable Intel’s portfolio of data centre products including Intel Xeon, Intel Optane, network interfaces and switch gear, Intel Agilex FPGAs, Xe architecture, Habana accelerators and future products under development.
The lab will also host an advanced technology showcase for customers and partners to observe and test Intel products in a variety of data centre environments in the lab, in an effort to accelerate adoption of these new technologies throughout the ecosystem.
The industry’s first open IP data centre immersion liquid cooling solution and reference design is an open, easy-to-deploy and easily scalable total cooling solution. It will allow partners to accelerate the introduction of Intel solutions in response to the trend of increasing data center power density to enhance operational efficiency.
The initial solution and design proof of concept will be completed in partnership with Intel Taiwan and across the Taiwanese ecosystem in a phased approach, with plans to scale out globally. Intel will continue to work with partners to develop and validate related solutions.
Data centres represent approximately 1% of the global electricity demand and account for about 0,3% of global carbon emissions1. Research shows that immersion cooling with energy reuse could reduce carbon emissions by 45% compared to traditional data centre usage2.