Immersion cooling allows the transfer of heat source from the working fluid. This working fluid is non-conductive in nature and restricted to only four families of fluids. It includes deionized water, fluorocarbon-based fluids, mineral oil, and synthetic fluids.
Immersion cooling can be described as the practice of submerging computer components in a thermally, instead of electrically, conductive liquid. It is a method used regularly for cooling large power distribution components, such as transformers. This method is gaining popularity across the world with innovative data centers.
The IT servers and hardware cooled by utilizing this method do not need fans and the heat exchange between the cool water circuit and warm coolant is usually caused by the heat exchanger. Several supercomputers with a massive density such as Cray-2, and CrayT90 require large liquid-to-chilled liquid heat exchangers for the removal of heat.
In 2021, the immersion cooling industry contributes $258.6 million, and it is predicted to generate $1,855.1 million in 2030, advancing at a rate of 24.5% in the coming future. The rising penetration of the data centers, rapid usage of cloud services, and large amounts of data generation are the major factors for industry propulsion.
Moreover, the rising internet penetration, led by an increasing number of smartphone users and rising social media use, and the growing focus of organizations on shifting data centers from the server room to data centers are projected to proliferate the industry.
The single-phase category holds a substantial share of the immersion cooling industry, accounting for 70%. It is led by the numerous benefits of the techniques. For instance, single-phase immersion cooling systems are easy to operate, energy-efficient, affordable, and have low-maintenance costs with an average life span of 15 years. All such factors contribute to the higher demand for data centers.
Data generation in large amounts boosts industry growth. Around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day across the world. In addition, 90% of the global data was created in the last 4 to 5 days due to the massive adoption of social media platforms, along with the advent of IoT solutions.
The growing usage of embedded, machine-to-machine, and IoT devices lead to high amounts of data generation. The data is generated in the form of pictures and videos, information for practical and amusement uses such as security and advertising, along with productivity-driven data such as huge files on computer systems and servers.
Moreover, the liquid utilized in the method must possess significantly low electrical conductivity, so that it does not affect the normal operations of the computer. If an electrically conductive liquid has to be used, then it is crucial to insulate those parts which as likely to get impacted by electromagnetic interference, more specifically, the CPU.
The major companies operating in the industry are Fujitsu Limited, DUG Technology (Australia) Pty Ltd., LiquidStack B.V., LiquidCool Solutions, ExaScaler Inc., Submer Technologies SL, and Iceotope Technologies Ltd.
Therefore, the large amounts of data generation led by the growing number of smartphone users, and internet penetration boosts the demand for immersion cooling.