Water is often used as a cooling agent for hardware solutions, including gaming PCs, data centers, and other powerful hardware systems. A business can use similar cooling methods for its entire building. In fact, Microsoft wants to implement a similar style of cooling for its data centers.
But how does water cooling work, and how does it make sense to use it for cooling hardware when water is notoriously not compatible with electronics?
How Water Cooling Works
This type of cooling system uses a closed-loop system, which is in short a system that doesn’t release or introduce any materials to the environment.
For example, the water or liquid coolant used in this system is transferred from its source to the outside world in a strategic way. A computer’s components will include water blocks that transport the generated heat away from the components and out of the system. Fans cool the liquid back down to a normal temperature, then the cycle repeats.
Some of the benefits of this system include:
- Greater heat dissipation potential
- Less noise generated in the process
Microsoft intends to use this process to scale, utilizing a similar method to cool its data centers.
Water Cooling for Data Centers
Some residences already utilize this method of cooling, so why not try it out for large-scale data centers?
That’s Microsoft’s logic, at least, and it makes sense. These plans include using water cooling in new data centers in Arizona and Wisconsin to keep water consumption by these systems at a low. While it might increase energy expenditures, it is still making the most of limited available resources.
It should be noted that Microsoft is not retrofitting its current data centers, only trying things out with new ones.
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We might not be able to help with a complete revamp of your business’ location or make adjustments to your local climate, but we can certainly keep your IT working as intended. To learn more about what we can do for your technology, reach out to us at (954) 575-3992.
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