Liquid cooling addresses several problems facing the industry right now, according to Peter Poulin, the recently-appointed CEO of Green Revolution Cooling (GRC), a firm which has been pioneering the idea of immersing IT equipment in oil to cool it. 

“Let’s start with densities,” he said. “AMD has announced a new server processor. In the fall, Intel will be announcing their new Skylake processor. Nvidia keeps introducing new processors. All of these processors are more and more power intensive, which is creating really high densities. Customers are asking if we will be able to support densities as high as 80kW per rack by the end of the year.” GRC can manage 130kW, he says. 

Cost is also cut as immersion cooling is “almost free,” he says - and things like raised floors, plenums and air flow engineering are no longer needed. The power savings can either cut cost, or allow more capacity to be installed in the same available power.