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What will be interesting to see is if they are going the hardware specialization route, like Nvidia with their support for efficient 4x4 fused FP16 matmuls with
by jamesblonde 8y ago
What will be interesting to see is if they are going the hardware specialization route, like Nvidia with their support for efficient 4x4 fused FP16 matmuls with FP32 matrix output (they call them 'tensor cores' - hah).
I suspect with the liquid cooling, they are just dialing up the matmul speed, which is probably the right way to go, IMO.
We are doing data-center experiments - using oil cooling. It's suprising to see circuitboards dumped in ordinary oil and working away, no short circuits.
- deepnotderp 8y agoYou mean immersion cooling? As long as the fluid isn't conductive you're good to go. If you're interested, Alibaba has been doing some work along the lines of production immersion cooling.
- jamesblonde 8y agoYes, it's not my research - a colleagues. He has some big vats of oil. It's a sureal experience to see servers just being oil-boarded (can i say that? :) ) and coming out ok!
- dig1 8y agoCooling via oil insulation isn't something new - it is used for years inside high voltage transformers to keep temperature stable. What kind of oil are you using?
- polvs 8y agoI'd love to discuss your research. We've been working low-profile during the last years doing a lot of R&D and experimenting with different fluids and components. Mineral oil is ok for experimentation, but for long term material compatibility and fire risk I wouldn't recommend it. FWIW I co-founded https://submer.com https://submer.com where we've developed an all-embedded computing immersion cooling solution that is virtually compatible with any kind of hardware (even fiber optics) and it's orders of magnitude more efficient than traditional data center cooling technologies.
- zeusk 8y agomineral oil based cooling is well known in enthusiast PC builds but it leaves weird gunk on boards that is harmless but a big PITA to clean up. Also - some oils while won't hurt your circuits, they might start dissolving the various plastic connectors on cables and board.
- jacquesm 8y ago> It's suprising to see circuitboards dumped in ordinary oil and working away, no short circuits. That will make a datacenter fire into something else entirely.
- zeusk 8y agoFlashpoint of some of the oils is higher than 350F. 100F and below is considered flammable.