Digital Realty Trust: Digital Realty teams up with CoolestDC for liquid cooling for SIN11 data center

Nov 30, 2021 | Posted by MadalineDunn

Digital Realty is partnering with Coolest DC to develop high-efficiency thermal management solutions for the industry following a pilot program supported by Temasek Foundation. 

The initial pilot scheme sought to improve energy consumption by data centers and enhance efficiency and had deployed:
  • Liquid-cooled compute pod, 
  • Chilled water systems, and,
  • Dry cooler configurations

Moreover, the pilot showed that there are big power savings to be made, with consumption reduced by nearly 30% with permanence increasing by 39%. 

The results showed that overall, liquid-cooled servers remained stable, and there was no thermal throttling even when at full rack capacity. As a result, according to the company, operators would require only 25 liquid-cooled servers to achieve the “same IT performance as 30 air-cooled servers.” A single rack, for example, with a power density of 25 kW, could save up to $25,000 a year. 

Of course, through this partnership, the ability to significantly lower power usage is a big green tick on the sustainability side of this, and Digital Realty APAC managing director Mark Smith commented that liquid cooling has “the potential to make an important contribution in reducing total power consumption and CO2 emissions.”

Meanwhile, ​​CoolestDC founder Poh Seng Lee said that while liquid cooling is often an “overlooked technology”, it is a technology that can “give enterprises and data center operators in the tropics a sustainability boost while substantially reducing energy consumption by 20-30% and water usage by up to 50%.”