Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), together with Intel Taiwan, has inaugurated a joint lab for High Performance Computing (HPC) Cooling Certification. Known as the ITRI-Intel Joint Lab, the facility is dedicated to the development and validation of industrial immersion cooling solutions for HPC. According to an ITRI press release, the lab offers comprehensive verification services, including materials property testing, compatibility assessments with server components, and service life cycle evaluations.
"According to the International Energy Agency, the energy consumption of data centers around the world ranged from 0.9% to 1.3% of total electricity consumption in 2022, with carbon emissions accounting for 0.3%," said Dr. Chang Shih-Chieh, General Director of Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories at ITRI. "The global proliferation of data centers, driven by the surging demand for data volume and transmission speed, underscores the urgency of our mission," he said.
Immersion cooling has become one of the best heat dissipation options: compared to conventional data center devices, the technology can dissipate heat from components to liquid coolant, and reduce 45% of the carbon emission. According to ITRI, it is developing a fluoride-free, single-phase immersion coolant technology featuring extremely low energy consumption in alignment with EU legislation.
"As a leader in data center innovation, Intel is collaborating with ITRI to explore further advanced immersion cooling technology. ITRI's active support in providing real-world machine verification and testing platforms will facilitate the industrial adoption of the technology," said Grace Wang, General Manager of Intel Taiwan. ". Through this collaboration, we aspire to promote advanced cooling solutions within Taiwan's supply chain, contributing to the realization of sustainable data centers."
According to Intel, data centers represent approximately 1% of the global electricity demand and account for about 0.3% of global carbon emissions. Back in May 2022, the IDM introduced its first Open IP Immersion Cooling Solutions and reference design aiming to be open, easy to deploy, and easily scalable. The initial solution and design proof of concept were already undertaken by Intel Taiwan in partnership with the Taiwanese ecosystem.
