NTU researchers develop new cooling system to help cut down on Singapore’s carbon footprint

SINGAPORE: A team of researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have developed a new method for cooling servers in data centres that may help Singapore cut down its carbon footprint.

The new method can potentially reduce the energy costs and carbon footprint of cooling servers in data centres by up to 26 per cent. This is significant as data centres in Singapore account for 7 per cent of the nation’s total electricity consumption.

In traditional data centres, the CPU (central processing unit) is the hottest component and requires an air-cooled heatsink. Additionally, low-temperature air conditioning is needed to cool the entire data centre.

The breakthrough by the NTU researchers comes at a time when the world is more environmentally friendly and sustainable solutions as the demand for cloud computing rises globally.

Scientists from NTU have created a new method that employs a spray of non-conductive fluids to cool the CPU directly without the need for a heatsink. A closed-loop system collects the fluids and cools them in tropical ambient air temperature without needing a chiller or air-conditioning.

This approach enables CPUs to operate faster and better than current speeds, limited by air cooling, as faster speeds result in higher temperatures. The innovative spray-cooling method also has a higher heat rejection capability and is expected to require 30 per cent less space than conventional air-cooled data centres.

Leader of the project, NTU Associate Professor Wong Teck Neng, said that the new spray-cooling system could efficiently remove heat and reduce the temperature of the CPU.