Digital Realty keeps it cool

Digital Realty has introduced the next evolution in high-density deployment support, featuring groundbreaking liquid-to-chip cooling technology. This innovative advancement represents a significant leap forward in addressing the evolving challenges of managing high-density workloads, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-intensive applications.

The new offering from Digital Realty, which builds upon the company’s standardized high-density colocation offering announced last year, introduces direct liquid cooling (DLC), bringing liquid directly to customers' infrastructure, allowing for greater relevance and versatility in meeting emerging AI demand. This approach enables businesses to deploy high-density configurations within a shared environment, in close proximity to the cloud, as well as network and AI service providers, while accommodating the distinct needs of individual setups, providing additional flexibility to customers. Furthermore, Digital Realty’s recently announced Private AI Exchange (AIPx) allows for new data exchange options in support of these DLC-enabled solutions.

Key highlights of Digital Realty's advanced high-density deployment support include the ability to leverage a wide range of mechanical solutions, such as rear door heat exchangers (RDHx) and DLC, enabling the efficient management of power densities ranging from 30 to 150 kilowatts per rack, and beyond. The combination of RDHx with DLC doubles the power densities supported, empowering businesses to effectively tackle the escalating demands of modern IT infrastructure and accelerate the adoption of AI by enterprises, whether the solution is private, cloud or hybrid.

Digital Realty's solution is designed to be both flexible and accessible. Deployment options are available in more than half of Digital Realty’s data centers worldwide, with plans to expand support to additional sites, allowing for the retrofitting of existing infrastructure to meet the emerging AI requirements.

"We're proud to align with our customers in evolving their infrastructure to support this cutting-edge liquid-to-chip technology, enabling them to land and expand their deployments efficiently and redefine what's possible in the digital age. With this cutting-edge liquid-to-chip cooling technology, we're not just setting a new standard for high-density deployment support; we're revolutionizing the very landscape of digital infrastructure,” said Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Realty.

“AI is revolutionizing nearly every aspect of every industry. By working with great partners like Digital Realty, we’re helping enterprises of any size on their AI journeys. The Lenovo-Digital Realty partnership forms a critical cornerstone of the hybrid AI vision, enabling organizations to harness the full potential of emerging technologies to deliver innovation faster,” said Scott Tease, Vice President and General Manager of HPC and AI for Lenovo ISG.

“Organizations are increasingly investing in generative AI and high-performance computing and need private, high-density environments. Digital Realty's HD Colocation offer is a strong response to the flourishing market need for high-density racks and presents an ideal solution to significantly accelerate time to value for these organizations, while avoiding the need for lengthy and costly capital projects to build or retrofit new capacity. This offering aligns with IDC’s colocation provider recommendations for the gen AI market,” said Sean Graham, IDC Research Director, Cloud to Edge Datacenter Trends

The deployment process for this high-density solution is streamlined and efficient, drawing on Digital Realty’s extensive experience in designing and delivering bespoke colocation solutions for customers, helping to accelerate time to value.