NVIDIA Rubin AI 服务器用 45°C 水-乙二醇冷却液直接冷却芯片和网络部件,取代传统空气冷却。在适宜气候下,干式冷却器可替代冷却塔,设施冷却水用量从约 260 万加仑/MW/年降至接近零。液冷为闭环循环,不持续蒸发水。一个 50MW AI 设施每年可节省超 400 万美元冷却能源和水费。全液冷 Rubin 服务器还将系统从 6 个机架单元缩减至 2 个,在相同空间内容纳更多计算。引用 NVIDIA 数据称,数据中心用水仅占美国日常用水量的 0.2%,液冷却正大幅降低水耗并创造热量再利用机会。
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NVIDIA's Rubin AI servers can now cool every chip and networking part with 45°C water-glycol coolant instead of cold air.
The big deal with this is that cooling water use can drop from about 2.6M gallons per MW per year to near zero in suitable climates
Traditional data centers cool air, then force that air across servers, so the building needs fans, chillers, cold aisles, and often cooling towers that dump heat by evaporating water.
Direct-to-chip cooling skips most of that air problem by bolting cold plates onto GPUs, CPUs, and networking parts, then pumping water-glycol coolant through them so heat leaves the chip through liquid instead of room air.
The strange part is that warmer coolant can be more efficient, because 45°C inlet coolant and roughly 55°C outlet coolant are hot enough for outdoor dry coolers to reject heat like a car radiator in many climates.
A cooling tower spends water to remove heat through evaporation, while a dry cooler spends fan power to move heat into outside air, so water use can fall from about 2.6M gallons per MW per year to near zero in the right location.
NVIDIA's design is not water-free, because the loop still uses mostly water mixed with glycol, but it can be closed-loop, meaning the same liquid circulates rather than being continually evaporated.
Single-phase immersion goes further by putting electronics in a non-conductive dielectric fluid, where the fluid stays liquid, pulls heat from many surfaces at once, and can run in a sealed loop without water evaporation.
Another strong claim from the immersion side is not only "less water," but zero process-water cooling plus easier heat capture, because the whole server bath becomes a heat collector.
Heat reuse works only when someone nearby needs low-grade heat, such as buildings, greenhouses, or industrial preheating, while BESS does not create energy but can shift power demand and provide grid services.