Microsoft is seeking better ways to manage powerful new AI hardware in its cloud computing operation, and focusing on immersion cooling technology used in bitcoin mining as the most promising technology for future high-density data centers.
The company is test-driving a setup in which servers are dunked in tanks of cooling fluid to manage rising heat densities. Citing the need to prepare for more powerful new chips and rising rack densities, the company is test-driving “promising” immersion technologies that are currently used in bitcoin mining operations.
“We’ve been investigating how we can achieve better cooling efficiency, and liquid cooling is what we’ve been focusing on,” said Mark Russinovich, the Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft’s Azure Cloud, said in a presentation at Microsoft Ignite. “What we’ve locked on as likely where we’re headed in our data centers is two-phase liquid cooling, and we’ve made a ton of progress down this path.”