Finally, the workshop discussion focused on optimizing data center cooling. Today's air-cooling systems, and even existing liquid-cooling technologies, are unlikely to adequately handle the cooling requirements of computer chips. With this reality in mind, the DOE launched its awards program. COOLERCHIPS For companies seeking innovative and highly efficient cooling technologies for data centers. The program's goal is to "reduce total cooling energy expenditure to less than 5 percent of a data center's typical IT load at any time and in any U.S. location for a high-density computing system."

Addressing the challenges of precision cooling as a team,
NVIDIA collaborated with Vertiv and several industry leaders from universities, startups, and other vendors to propose a cooling system that helped NVIDIA and its partners secure a $5 million grant from the COOLERCHIPS program. The advanced cooling system project will be developed over three years and aims to help solve future data center efficiency and cooling challenges by combining two liquid cooling technologies into a single system for the first time.
The COOLERCHIPS application will combine two different approaches: direct liquid cooling and immersion cooling. According to NVIDIA's blog post announcing the new technology, "First, the chips will be cooled with cold plates whose coolant evaporates like sweat on the forehead in the case of the most heavily used processors, then cools down to condense and reform into a liquid. Second, entire server systems, including the lowest-power components, will be encased in hermetically sealed containers and immersed in coolant. They will use a liquid commonly found in refrigerators and automotive air conditioners, but not yet used in data centers."
In theory, this approach can cool a containerized data center in an environment with temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius, with up to 25 times the cooling capacity of current server racks. This proposed application would also cost less and operate up to 20 percent more efficiently than conventional approaches.

An innovation that future-proofs all stakeholders.
These types of programs not only aim to make significant advancements in our industry, but they also align with Vertiv's own roadmap for innovation and new product development. In previous blog posts, I've discussed how Vertiv's innovation team works to make the organization more agile in product development in order to adapt to emerging trends and disruptions in the industry. We achieve this by formalizing product development processes, looking years ahead of what's currently available, and analyzing which technologies will be needed to support future applications. While this technology solution from NVIDIA and its partners is still in the conceptualization phase, the COOLERCHIPS project is a prime example of how Vertiv's innovation team successfully uses these processes to develop solutions designed to address technological and infrastructure disruptions.
Programs like COOLERCHIPS strengthen our R&D capabilities and provide an opportunity to develop highly innovative technologies that might otherwise go unfunded as partners pursue other projects. We look forward to seeking similar opportunities that align with our business objectives and help keep our customers and partners future-proofed for our industry.

Greg Ratcliff
is Vertiv’s Chief Innovation Officer and an industry veteran of more than 30 years. Among his career highlights at Vertiv, he led the global advanced analytics group for the Services team, specializing in real-time data and connecting Vertiv’s nearly one billion operational products to the Vertiv Cloud. Greg’s educational background includes non-dissertation PhD coursework at Liberty University, focusing on agile IoT project management and Big Data projects; an MBA from the University of Phoenix; and undergraduate degrees in Applied Mathematics and Information Technology. Greg was named the 2020 Technology Executive of the Year at Comspark’s Central Ohio Tech Power Player Awards. He is also a licensed commercial pilot and an avid cyclist.