Knowledge heart operators have been more and more in search of various energy sources to gas their processing wants, that are rising exponentially with the appearance of AI.
Colocation supplier ECL believes it has discovered that answer in a hydrogen-powered information heart that pulls no energy from the electrical grid, generates water, and has a PUE of 1.1.
The corporate’s MV1 facility is situated in Mountain View, Calif. It’s the prototype for what the corporate hopes shall be a sequence of sustainable, modular, built-to-suit information facilities designed from the bottom as much as help the high-density GPU deployments of as much as 75 kW per rack.
ECL claims it could actually ship new amenities in underneath 12 months, reasonably than the standard two to three-year means of constructing a standard information heart.
MV1 is a one-megawatt design however totally modular, so extra capability might be added on as wanted, stated Yuval Bachar, founder and CEO of the corporate, who beforehand held high engineering, infrastructure, and structure roles at Microsoft, LinkedIn, Fb, and Cisco.
The ability is comparatively modest in information heart phrases, however Bachar stated the modular, hydrogen-powered information heart idea has been designed with scalability in thoughts.
“We’re proving the know-how 100% to have the ability to scale out as massive as we wish,” he stated. “And we’re already within the pipeline a number of initiatives that are bigger, a lot bigger, that can scale up a number of of these models that the one we have now.”
Hydrogen-powered information facilities aren’t a brand new idea, however they’ve but to catch on within the business. Based on AFCOM’s State of the Data Center 2024 survey, solely 16% of respondents consider hydrogen-powered information facilities are gaining traction – whereas 59% consider solar energy is gaining traction and 28% consider wind energy is gaining traction. ECL is hoping to vary that.
‘A Zero-Emission Website’
ECL’s first buyer, bare-metal GPU supplier Cato Digital, purchased up the entire capability of the MV1 facility. It should begin by bringing 84 Nvidia DGX servers and later including an extra 44 for a complete of 1,800 GPUs operating AI-as-a-Service operations.
Bachar notes that the common value to construct a one-megawatt information heart is between $14 and $15 million, however ECL’s hydrogen-powered information heart is available in at about 30% or 40% much less. The price to function these amenities is far decrease as a result of it makes use of hydrogen energy reasonably than the native energy grid, he stated.
Hydrogen could be the most considerable factor within the universe, however it nonetheless isn’t free. Common hydrogen deliveries need to be made to gas the info heart, however that hydrogen is 50% lower than the price of an equal quantity of diesel gas, in keeping with Bachar.
“It’s positively higher pricing than operating solely on diesel mills. But it surely’s additionally stainable, so that you get way more than simply the worth to function it. It’s really a completely sustainable, zero-emission web site,” he stated.
The Fusina hydrogen energy station close to Venice, Italy (Picture: Alamy)
As long as it has an everyday supply of hydrogen, an ECL information heart might be positioned anyplace. And as a substitute of consuming huge quantities of water like most information facilities, the MV1 facility really creates water within the energy era course of, which ECL offers again to the native water provide.
Bachar says ECL has about 20 patents for energy distribution, energy assortment, and cooling. The operator makes use of its personal customized cooling know-how that features rear door warmth exchangers. With the two.0 model of its cooling know-how, the corporate expects to push the racks to be able to cooling as much as 125 kW. That’s slated for the second or third quarter of subsequent yr.
Analysts Sound Off
Jabari Williams-George, senior analysis analyst with the Uptime Institute, says “[ECL] are attaining what most individuals dream of attaining, having the ability to one supply the hydrogen-producing energy on-site, and on high of that, get hot and cold water streams.”
Nevertheless, different business analysts aren’t utterly bought on hydrogen as an influence supply, noting that the know-how has been round for many years and hasn’t caught on.
“The business has been speaking about hydrogen energy gas cells for 40-50 years,” stated Jack Gold, principal analyst at J.Gold Associates. “I bear in mind 25 years in the past, sitting in a gathering with [a large technology conglomerate], and them telling us that the subsequent era of laptops can be hydrogen-powered since you don’t have to fret about charging [the devices]. That by no means occurred.”
Ashish Nadkari, analyst with IDC, added: “From what I see, the largest concern is one, how dependable is the provision of hydrogen, and two, how a lot hydrogen do they should preserve the lights on? Are they going to expire of hydrogen on daily basis? Do they should replenish on daily basis, two days, three days?”
Skepticism apart, it’s clear that information facilities should develop new options to sort out at the moment’s energy constraints, particularly with the hovering calls for of AI. ECL expects to launch new hydrogen-powered information facilities within the coming months.
