4 ms·
While air cooling doesn't scale, air also is not a great heat carrier when you cram that much power to a small space. Today's supercomputers (AI or not) can't
by bayindirh 11mo ago
While air cooling doesn't scale, air also is not a great heat carrier when you cram that much power to a small space.
Today's supercomputers (AI or not) can't cool themselves off with air. Too much heat in a too confined space. Direct Liquid Cooling is a must.
However, you can use closed-loop liquid cooling (like Europe), but open-loop is cheaper since it skips the "pump the heat out from water to atmosphere" part and "who cares about the water anyway, there's monies to be made".
Putting money above the environment always makes me angry though. It's like burning the walls of your house to stay warm.
- api 11mo agoThat’s what I thought. Yet look at the prices on e.g. Hetzner and how profitable US cloud is. They can easily afford to do closed loop. Whenever there’s a real environmental problem the answer is usually “there’s a right way to do it that lacks these issues but it’s slightly more expensive.”