Liquid and air cooling system meets evolving data centre needs

USA: Critical infrastructure service provider has collaborated with Compass Datacenters to develop a solution that integrates air and liquid cooling technologies for data centres supporting AI.

Vertiv and Compass engineers collaborated on what the companies have described as a future-forward cooling solution, with Vertiv developing and manufacturing the technology solution.

The Vertiv CoolPhase Flex, the next generation of Vertiv’s Liebert DSE packaged system, integrates liquid cooling capabilities with refrigerant-based air-cooling technologies and heat rejection in a single packaged system. 

As data centre customers plan their growth strategies, Vertiv CoolPhase Flex can be used initially as a direct expansion (DX) cooling system with integrated economisation to support air cooling and then, as more high-density computing is deployed, the liquid cooling capabilities can be simply and quickly engaged to support liquid cooling applications.

The packaged hybrid design of the Vertiv CoolPhase Flex minimises the complexity associated with liquid cooling adoption, reducing time to deploy, as well as associated costs and downtime.

For air cooling, the solution uses pumped refrigerant economisation (PRE) technology that automatically switches to free-cooling whenever external conditions are suitable. When IT loads are better served by liquid cooling, the same system is designed to easily convert for liquid fluid distribution and heat removal, and is compatible with liquid cooling solutions that include Vertiv XDU 1350.

The self-contained packaged system is installed outside the data centre, freeing up valuable space. 

Compass’ modular data centres and equipment yards are designed for flexibility and scale so that it can adapt to evolving requirements and new technologies. The company says that this means customers will be able to upgrade to the Vertiv CoolPhase Flex with little impact to operations and without high costs associated with rebuilding or extensive retrofitting.

“Our customers are looking for fast, practical and energy-efficient ways to introduce liquid cooling to support AI and other high-density applications, but want the flexibility to leverage air-cooling and support mixed loads in those same facilities,” said Compass CEO Chris Crosby. 

“We had a vision for a future in which we could be prepared to quickly deploy air or liquid cooling to meet changing customer requirements and Vertiv brought that vision to life in a very innovative way. The Vertiv CoolPhase Flex provides a level of flexibility that is unparalleled in the marketplace and that is highly valuable to us and to our customers.”

Giordano Albertazzi, CEO of Vertiv, added: “AI is not only bringing change to data centres, it is also changing how key industry players work together to enable growth. Data centre operators, customers, chip manufacturers, infrastructure providers, utility companies and others must work together to innovate and reduce barriers to AI adoption.”

The initial units will be deployed at a Compass facility in Q1 2025 as part of a planned multi-year, multi-billion dollar supply arrangement.