Extreme PUE and Absolute Intelligence Five Technology Discoveries for Data Centers in 2021

Author: Sun Weijing Source: China IDC Circle 2022-01-04 10:39

From predicting the leading role of "digital transformation" to looking forward to the wave of "new infrastructure", the annual China IDC Industry Annual Ceremony has accurately grasped the development trend and pointed out the direction for the development of the data center industry in the future.

In 2021, the tide of new infrastructure construction is in the ascendant, and under the dual-carbon strategy, "dual control of energy consumption" will affect thousands of industries. As a new type of infrastructure, data centers enable the digital transformation of thousands of industries and provide efficient computing power, but also face many challenges such as efficiency, energy consumption, and security.

Under the current complex environment, the 16th China IDC Industry Annual Ceremony has arrived as promised in the urgent expectation of the industry. The upstream, middle and downstream enterprises of the data center gather together to listen to the interpretation of the policy, understand the market forecast, share the technical exploration, obtain the cooperation opportunities, and seek the development direction.

Through IDCC2021, we have seen the resilience of the industry to move forward in the ups and downs, and have also seen various exploration practices of enterprises' firm innovation, which illuminate the direction and trend of data center technology development.

Discovery 1: Data center liquid cooling enters the eve of large-scale commercial use

If it is said that the high power of chips and servers in recent years has prompted the rise of liquid cooling technology in data centers, this year's dual carbon and energy consumption policies have made the combination of computing power and liquid cooling an inevitable trend.

From the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Development of New Data Centers (2021-2023)" to the "Implementation Plan for the Implementation of the Carbon Neutrality Target to Promote the Green and High-Quality Development of Data Centers and New Infrastructures such as 5G", "liquid cooling" Both are listed as encouraged and supported technologies.

After several years of development and testing, liquid cooling technology has become relatively mature. At this meeting, IDC companies' concerns about the security of liquid cooling have been significantly reduced. Some companies have indicated that they have tried liquid cooling in data centers, and some companies are planning to use liquid cooling.

Faced with the obstacles of ordinary enterprises deploying liquid cooling, Alibaba Cloud, the representative "player" of immersion liquid cooling, released Panjiu's integrated liquid cooling solution-Immersion DC 1000 at the meeting, and completed the self-developed and self-used technology. The role of output changes.

Different from previous liquid cooling products, Alibaba Cloud's Panjiu solution realizes the integration of products. The introduction of "Alibaba Cloud Panjiu Liquid Cooling Infrastructure Special Session and Alibaba Cloud Panjiu Liquid Cooling Product Conference" shows that Panjiu's liquid cooling solution is based on single-phase immersion liquid cooling technology, which innovatively integrates heat dissipation technology with server and network equipment. Waiting for the IT system to be fully integrated and delivered as a whole, while supporting super computing power and having flexible deployment methods.

Guo Yiqun, director of Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure business and head of liquid cooling products, said that Immersion DC 1000 "is not affected by regions, can be deployed in any weather region in the world and can easily achieve the ultimate PUE1.09".

This figure is enough to illustrate the advantages of liquid cooling in heat dissipation efficiency and power consumption compared with air cooling.

The dual-carbon background and energy consumption constraints pose challenges to both new and old data centers, and liquid cooling will become increasingly valuable.

Discovery 2: Lithium battery replaces lead-acid battery, energy storage is getting more and more attention

The lead-acid battery traditionally used in the UPS power supply has high energy consumption, large space occupation, short overall battery life, high operating environment requirements, easy to cause environmental pollution, strict operation requirements for application scenarios, and various disadvantages, which are difficult to meet the current data center. need.

In contrast, high-energy and low-consumption lithium batteries have advantages in terms of safety, energy conversion efficiency, and economy, and can significantly reduce data center footprint, extend service life, and improve return on investment.

At IDCC2021, the use of lithium batteries to replace lead-acid batteries has become a recognized trend and even the status quo. Equipment manufacturers demonstrated various technical research and products based on lithium batteries.

For example, in the "Data Center Smart Energy Efficiency Forum - Shuangdeng Group Special Forum", Shuangdeng Group released SHVP-Li series lithium battery solutions. The data center lithium battery solution is based on a highly safe lithium iron phosphate electrochemical system and three-dimensional ultra-high conductive network technology, and integrates a high-precision monitoring and management system to inject green and low-carbon energy into the data center and provide uninterrupted backup power protection.

In recent years, including power grid companies, equipment manufacturers, and IDC companies, attempts to apply energy storage systems to data centers have been going on. In July this year, a large-scale IDC service provider built the first project in China to apply large-scale energy storage technology to data centers, and data center + energy storage began to attract industry attention.

In the second half of this year, the state has introduced a number of policies to support energy storage data centers. The “power rationing” and peak-to-valley electricity prices have further increased the attractiveness of energy storage to data center companies.

According to Zhao Zemin, deputy chief engineer of Beijing Shuangdeng Huifeng Energy Technology Co., Ltd., the use of energy storage in data centers has the following advantages: PUE reduction, green and low carbon; electricity cost saving, maximizing the use of renewable energy; peak-shaving electricity, grid-friendly; The advantage of resilience, resistance to risk. At the meeting, he introduced the data center optical storage microgrid solution developed by Shuangdeng Group based on more than 10 years of experience in deep cultivation of energy storage technology.

Finding 3: Data center power distribution architecture evolves, energy management system emerges

Based on the rapid development of technology and the continuous changes in demand, under the premise of high security and reliability, the data center power distribution system, which is responsible for the production, transmission, transformation, distribution, and use of electric energy, is moving towards high-end and intelligent direction. Evolution, so as to obtain greater flexibility and higher efficiency in equipment control, operation and maintenance, etc., and put forward new requirements for power distribution equipment manufacturers.

At the "Siemens Data Center Decarbonization Solutions Forum", Siemens Intelligent Infrastructure Group introduced the redefined data center power distribution architecture: excellent medium voltage cabinets, reliable low voltage cabinets, and advanced system architecture.

"Dual control of energy consumption" and rising energy costs have prompted data centers to pay more attention to the details of their energy usage, energy management efficiency, and energy reliability. At the same time, energy supply technologies are complex and diverse, and energy conversion technologies are increasing. Users hope to find suitable energy solutions to meet their energy needs in the three processes of equipment energy saving, process energy saving and management energy saving.

Taking advantage of its excellent industrial genes, Siemens has launched the Siemens digital integrated energy management and control platform. The platform is a multi-energy flow integrated energy management system built by Siemens that combines energy production and use. Relying on the digital twin technology, it can realize three functions: energy forecasting, optimal scheduling, and analysis and diagnosis.

Finding 4: The application of AI in the data center goes further

The formulation of a series of policies and mechanisms, such as the national integrated big data center hub node, mandatory standards for data center energy efficiency limits, and peak and valley electricity prices, will have many far-reaching impacts on the industry. For example, the application of AI in data centers may further Expand and deepen.

At the "Smart DC, Pre-built Future - Huawei's Low-Carbon Data Center Special Forum", the application of AI in low-carbon and energy-saving data centers was demonstrated.

The use of indirect evaporative cooling, fluorine pump and other refrigeration technologies, intelligent integration of power modules, high-efficiency UPS, lithium batteries and other power supply and backup technologies, and AI-based automatic tuning technology are the first way to effectively achieve low energy consumption in data centers.

Huawei's new generation of deep-integrated power modules, with one row and one power supply, can save more than 40% of the floor space. At the same time, through product prefabrication, the quality is more reliable. The delivery cycle is reduced from February to two weeks, and the link efficiency of the solution is 97.8% higher. , the efficiency increased by 3.3%, saving 18.8 million (10 years), and finally through the blessing of AI technology, iPower comprehensively improved the reliability of the power supply and distribution system.

For the energy-saving renovation of old data centers, Huawei Digital Energy Technology Co., Ltd. has also launched a full-scale solution from equipment (power distribution and HVAC) to systems (AI energy efficiency tuning).

Finding 5: Data center from intelligent to intelligent operation

For a long time, the operation of data centers has remained in the stage of standardized and centralized management, focusing on the electromechanical level of "hardware", and intelligence is limited to the use of intelligent equipment, not to mention the intelligent operation of data centers.

Divided by the "Data Center Intelligent Driving Grading Standard", domestic data centers are still generally at the L1 level, which is labor-based and system-assisted—that is, the use of dynamic environment monitoring and building automation systems to monitor and collect data, with equipment and systems. There are few data center operations reaching the L2 stage of "system-based, manual-assisted".

Surprisingly, at the IDCC2021 site, we saw the innovative breakthrough of the L3 level of data center intelligent operation at the GDS first-generation Smart DC conference with the theme of "Green Smart Infrastructure Connecting to a Sustainable Future".

The first-generation Smart DC is the "overall optimal solution for data centers" created by GDS based on its 20-year experience in operating more than 70 self-built data centers. Among them, in terms of intelligent operation, GDS has formed X-BP series products based on the best operation practices and self-developed software and hardware collaboration:

X-BP-Hardware: Provide AHU, HVDC and mobile diesel engine, and cooperate with self-developed control system to achieve TCO optimization.

X-BP-BMS: Based on the BMS system of minimalist delivery, it realizes comprehensive control and quality assurance of data, combined with professional knowledge system and white-box dimension connection, stimulates data value, and enables intelligent, efficient and safe management.

X-BP-AI: Relying on 70+ large-scale data center operation experience, and using "expert system + AI" for joint optimization, it brings better energy efficiency performance and security assurance.

L3 intelligent operation is not just a theory. At present, GDS' first-generation Smart DC, including the X-BP series products, has landed in the Changshu ultra-large-scale data center park. The intelligent operation of the L3-level data center has been realized in the park, and the operation, energy efficiency and security management have been greatly optimized. .

As a leading data center service provider in the industry, GDS' innovation in intelligent operation may drive the development trend of data centers from intelligent to intelligent operation.

From extreme PUE1.09 to data center L3 intelligent operation;

From equipment technology exploration to data center multi-scenario landing;

From industrial development opportunities to facing industry challenges;

China IDC Industry Annual Ceremony has been standing with the data center industry for 16 years. We are the witnesses of every technological progress, the participants of each year's development, and one of the creators of the future industrial blueprint.

2021 is gone, and in 2022, the data center continues to move forward.