Application of liquid cooling technology in AI chips

     Currently, various AI models are thriving, driving explosive growth in global computing power demand. With the increasing demand for computing power, the cost of global electricity and power consumption continues to rise. According to relevant statistics, the power consumption of mainstream chips under AI computing power is constantly increasing. For example, Intel's multiple CPU chips have exceeded 350W in TDP, NVIDIA's H100 series GPU chips have reached 700W in TDP, and B100 TDP may reach around 1000W.

    At present, the AI PC industry is increasingly using water cooling technology, and high-end computers basically use liquid cooling solution.  Compared with ordinary air cooling, the maximum heat dissipation efficiency is increased by 50% -60%, and the noise is also lower than ordinary air cooling.  liquid cooling  can be divided into contact type liquid cooling and non-contact type liquid cooling.

    Among them, immersion type, spray type liquid cooling, and other types of liquid cooling that directly contact the terminal and the cooling liquid are called contact type liquid cooling, while those that are indirectly connected to the terminal through a cold plate and use heat exchange between the cold plate and the terminal to remove heat are called non-contact type liquid cooling. The most commonly used type of liquid cooling on PCs is this non-contact type, where the cold head is fixed in contact with the CPU surface, and through the flow of water, it exchanges heat with the CPU inside the cold head to remove the heat generated by the CPU.

     While the liquid cooling industry is thriving, there are also some challenges. Liquid cooling technology has been developed domestically and internationally for more than a decade, but the current ecosystem is not perfect, with various product forms and a low degree of product standardization. At present, there is no standard interface specification for PC systems in the industry. Cabinets and servers are deeply coupled, and various PC devices, cooling fluids, refrigeration pipelines, power supply and distribution products have different forms. Different manufacturers have different interfaces and cannot be compatible with each other, which will inevitably limit competition and affect the high-quality development of the industry.

     Further establishment and standardization of liquid cooling technology standards and industrial chain ecology are still needed to promote the rapid, efficient, and standardized development of the liquid cooling industry.