alt Hacker NewsI've been hearing this line for over a decade, now. "Immersion cooling will make data centers scale!" "Converting to DC at the perimeter increases density!"
Yes, of course both of those things are true, and yes, some data centers do engage in those processes for their unique advantages. The issue is that aside from specialty kit designed for that use (like the AWS Outposts with their DC conversion), the rank-and-file kit is still predominantly AC-driven, and that doesn't seem to be changing just yet.
While I'd love to see more DC-flavored kit accessible to the mainstream, it's a chicken-and-egg problem that neither the power vendors (APC, Eaton, etc) or the kit makers (Dell, Cisco, HP, Supermicro, etc) seem to want to take the plunge on first. Until then, this remains a niche-feature for niche-users deal, I wager.
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As seen on HN a few days ago, immersion cooling is dead: turns out the risks of getting sued to oblivion due to widespread PFAS contamination isn't worth it. [0]
DC doesn't have such a killer. There are a decent bunch of benefits, and the main drawback is gear availability. However, the chicken-and-egg problem is being solved by hyperscalers. Like it or not, the rank-and-file of small & medium businesses is dying, and massive deployments like AWS/GCP/Azure/Meta are becoming the norm. Those four already account for 44% of data center capacity! If they switch to DC can you still call it "specialty kit", or would it perhaps be more accurate to call it "industry norm"?
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the rest of the industry is essentially getting Big Tech's leftovers. I wouldn't be surprised if DC became the norm for colocation over the next few decades.
[0]: https://thecoolingreport.com/intel/pfas-two-phase-immersion-...
Those vendors all have DC power supply options, to my knowledge. It’s hardly new; early telco datacenters had DC power rails, since Western Electric switching equipment ran on 48VDC.
https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/publications-and-media/publi...
At least for servers, power supplies are highly modular. It just takes 1 moderately sized customer to commit to buying them, and a DC module will appear.
Looking at the manual for the first server line that came to mind, you can buy a Dell PowerEdge R730 today with a first party support DC power supply.
Surely if it makes sense for the big players, they will do it, and then the benefits will trickle down to the rest? Like how Formula 1 technology will end up in consumer vehicles.
These are GigaWatt data centers. For a single one they buy equipment by the container ship. Nothing is niche about it.
Immersion cooling was/is so fucking impractical it is only useful for very specific issues. If you talk to any engineer who worked on CRAY machines that were full of liquid freon, they'll tell how hard it is to do quick swaps of anything.
Its much cheaper, quicker and easier to use cooling blocks with leak proof quick connectors to do liquid cooling. It means you can use normal equipment, and don't need to re-re-enforce the floor.
A lot of "edge" stuff has 12/48v screw terminals, which I suspect is because they are designed to be telco compatible.
For megawatt racks though, I'm still not really sure.