EKWB & 2CRSi Collaboration Case Study: Custom Direct Liquid Cooling Solution

HPC facilities and Data Centers are continuously evolving, with each transformation phase being defined by the technological requirements of that particular era. The amount of global data being produced, stored, and processed is growing exponentially. This type of heightened demand, rapid advancements in chip capabilities, and new environmental standard requirements altogether bring a new batch of challenges and obstacles that must be considered and tackled by the companies that are building the HPC facilities and data centers of the future. 

A surefire solution for this multifaceted challenge is using liquid cooling solutions capable of handling much denser server installations. By utilizing direct liquid cooling, these environments can easily meet and exceed the growing performance-based demands of their end-users, as well as the strict energy-efficiency and environment-based standards they must adhere to.

Background

2CRSi is a French global tech group. Since 2005, the company has been developing, manufacturing, and distributing innovative end-to-end energy-efficient computing hardware, server solutions, and services for a wide range of sectors and industries, including cloud computing, datacenters, enterprise IT, big data, HPC, artificial intelligence, 5G, IoT, edge computing, etc. Their vision is to reconcile IT with our planet by providing high-performance servers capable of reducing energy consumption, as well as through reusing waste heat and developing a cradle-to-cradle approach.

The Challenge: Creating a Direct Liquid Cooling Loop for a High-Density Computing Server Rack  

The 2CRSi team wanted to increase the computing density in one of their server products, but the main problem they encountered was that standard air cooling was not a viable option to deliver sufficient cooling performance and reach the desired levels of energy efficiency.

According to Mehdi Loulidi , the Mechanical Engineer at 2CRSi:

“Large data centers produce a lot of heat, so air-cooling is not enough as a lot of fans are needed, producing high noise levels. DLC (direct liquid cooling) can be the solution to cool more power and spend less energy. With DLC needing fewer fans, the work environment conditions of technicians are improved as the noise is reduced. Another advantage is that the heat gathered from the components can be reused.”

Their DLC-ready rack, OCtoPus 1.8E, packs 8 GPUs and a CPU in a single rack unit chassis. For comparison, their 1.4E air-cooled version of the same rack features only 4 GPUs and a CPU inside the same chassis .

“We wanted to double the number of GPUs inside a standard air-cooled server configuration,”

Loulidi continues.

“Getting 8 GPUs instead of 4 was a challenge in many ways. Height of the assembly, locations, and orientation of the fittings for easy piping and availability of GPU’s connectivity were also some of the main challenges.”

Results: A Successful Collaboration and Meeting ALL the Nuanced Needs of the Client

EK Enterprise delivered on all the client’s needs and requirements. Our products were used for each and every facet of the final DLC solution – from tubes and fittings to GPU and CPU water blocks, with the most significant challenge being the design of a water block capable of cooling two GPUs simultaneously.

Their liquid-cooled server is now capable of performing in an optimal manner, successfully liquid-cooling 8 GPUs and a CPU, achieving high energy efficiency and low noise levels. The so-called “sandwich” water block can very effectively liquid-cool two RTX 40 series GPUs simultaneously without increasing the rack space needed.

The 2CRSi team reported highly satisfying feedback for the entire DLC solution for this project.

"Thanks to EK Enterprise design, we are now able to deliver racks with twice as many GPUs than with traditional air-cooled racks. This successful collab between two global players sounds like a future made of simplification, optimization, and the reduction of costs, risks, and time for continuous improvement of our data center products and innovations,"

says Mehdi Loulidi, the Mechanical Engineer at 2CRSi.