As demand for compute capacity grows, chipmakers are packing more transistors into their chips than ever. This has helped many chipmakers push core counts to 40, 64, and even 128. However, this comes at the consequence of higher power consumption and by extension hotter data centers.
Both Intel and AMD’s latest and greatest data center processor families are inching closer to 300 watts per socket, and it’s not uncommon for a single server to employ four or more CPUs. Add it up and that’s not only a lot of power, it’s also a lot heat that needs to be dissipated to keep those chips running at peak performance.
To accommodate, server chassis are made bigger to fit bigger heatsinks and more cooling fans, but this also means data centers can fit fewer servers on each rack. It’s this vicious cycle that LiquidStack CEO Joe Capes aims to address.