by  

Jordan Sutlive

It’s a tale as old as time: Throughout history, much to their eventual regret, people have made decisions based on short-term benefits—while carefully ignoring those decisions’ long-term ramifications.

As the data center industry hurtles towards a trillion-dollar valuation by 2029, it can be easy to succumb to the thrill of instant gratification. Maybe you’ve peeked at your competitors and wondered if—or, most likely, when—they’ve chosen to adopt liquid cooling to compensate for the latest GPUs’ growing thermal demands. And, as you similarly explore transforming your data center into an AI-ready data center, maybe you’ve also wondered which liquid cooling technology is the “easiest” or “quickest” choice to pursue.

If so, you’ve no doubt noticed that single-phase direct-to-chip (DTC) is considered the incumbent solution by many industry players, largely because it was first to market. However, with no end in sight to this current AI craze, it’s critical to clearly assess whether your choice of liquid cooling technology is worth it for the long haul. If you default to adopting single-phase DTC simply because it’s been around longer than most, you might be foregoing years’ worth of long-term benefits—both in terms of thermal performance and monetary value.

Worse yet, single-phase DTC’s short-term familiarity may lead you to long-term ruin.

Leaks Happen, But They Don’t Have To Sink You

Let’s talk about leaks.

They happen to the best of us. They’re inevitable. But disaster due to leaks isn’t inevitable—it just depends on which cooling fluid you elect to use.

With single-phase DTC, either “pure” water or water mixed with a 25% solution of propylene-glycol (PG25) are most used. That means the only thing separating water from hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of critical infrastructure is tubing and connections susceptible to leaks. And you can see firsthand just what happens when water hits electrical equipment in your racks:

In short: it isn’t pretty. In fewer than seven seconds, it can lead to total operational failure.

And make no mistake: the results of water-based leaks can be disastrous. In 2023, a cooling system water pump problem allowed water to flood the battery room in a West European data center, leading to a fire that caused major cloud service providers like Google to suffer days of downtime across the continent.

The following year, the U.S. government’s Cheyenne supercomputer was sold at an approximately 98% discount, largely because of “maintenance limitations due to faulty quick disconnects causing water spray.”

Even if your leak doesn’t make headlines, it can still cause major financial headaches for your company. Let’s do the math:

  • In a single 1P rack, there exists an average of 1,156 GPUs.
  • Reportedly, at a minimum, roughly 4% of GPUs will eventually fail due to water-based leaks—with the highest probability of leakage occurring in-rack.
  • A single GPU costs tens of thousands of dollars to replace—and replacement availability isn’t guaranteed, given current supply constraints.

Again, it’s common knowledge that leaks are inevitable. So ask yourself: Are the minimal discounts of single-phase DTC really worth this risk?

Fortunately, there’s a way to avoid flirting with financial disaster altogether. With a waterless solution like Accelsius’ NeuCool™ two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology, leaks won’t lead to operational downtime. That’s because we use a dielectric or nonconductive refrigerant that doesn’t damage electronics in the event of a leak. We even had Austin Reliability Labs test and film it for us. You can see the results for yourself:

It isn’t just our dielectric refrigerant protecting you from any financial damage due to consequential IT leaks, however. We also have a comprehensive, multi-year support and warranty program underwritten by one of the largest commercial property and casualty insurance companies in the U.S., capable of providing up to $100K of coverage per server per incident.

So don’t worry: We’ve got you covered beyond the short-term.

Liquid Cooling That Pays Off: Higher Temperatures, Lower Costs

NeuCool isn’t just equipped to save you in rare times of crisis, however. Day by day, leaks or otherwise, it has the potential to propel your company towards long-term savings. That’s entirely because we tend to run hot—remarkably hotter than single-phase DTC.

A recent study from Vertiv indicated that an increase of 1°C in your facility water (FW) temperature directly corresponds to 4-5% energy savings. Our recent tests have proven we can operate with facility water that’s 6-8°C warmer than other liquid cooling technologies, which can lead to over 25% energy savings. As cooling alone can consume up to 40% of a data center’s energy, NeuCool won’t just save you money long-term—it also frees up more power for you to allocate towards your AI infrastructure, or further assist you in achieving your sustainability goals.

Adding Up NeuCool’s Advantages

There’s a variety of additional reasons why switching to NeuCool vs. single-phase DTC is a strategy for smarter savings. Beyond the cost of leaks or long-term energy savings, for example, the costs of maintaining our noncorrosive refrigerant are considerably lower vs. single-phase’s water, which is fickle at best—prone to biofouling and other forms of contamination—and requires constant oversight.

We could go on. But by now, the difference should be clear: it takes years to build and invest in an AI-ready data center. Make sure you choose a cooling solution that’s equipped to deliver you years’ worth of peak thermal management without the risk of financial ruin.