In the AI era, data center workloads are expected to grow significantly. Despite advancements in silicon process technologies and optimized architectures, the power demand is outpacing efficiency improvements in air-cooling capabilities. Power requirements for next-generation AI model training may reach 100kW per rack in some use cases. While many have turned to liquid-cooling as an alternative to air-cooling, immersion cooling is emerging to position itself as the ideal long-term solution to the cooling and power efficiency problems found in data centers.

Immersion cooling can significantly simplify cooling infrastructure and reduce cooling appliances, improving energy efficiency, and lowering Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). The typical data center PUE across the globe ranges between 1.6 and 1.9, while immersion-cooled PUE could be as low as 1.02. Immersion cooling offers the best chance for data centers to support single-rack demand of 100kW and eliminates conventional air-cooling fans and systems. It also eliminates the growing need for separate air and liquid cooling systems, simplifying data center infrastructure and maintenance

The impact of implementing immersion cooling affects all aspects of the AI and HPC architecture, including XPUs, storage, and networking devices, and even interconnects. Immersion cooling can be implemented as a single-phase or two-phase solution. While two-phase implementations are theoretically the most efficient, single-phase implementations are much more practical for most data center applications. In single-phase immersion cooling, components, servers, or whole racks are submerged in a thermally conductive dielectric fluid, formulated to be a more efficient heat conductor than air or water. Heated fluid is cooled using a heat exchanger and returned to the immersion cooling intake.

From test and measurement solutions to optical transceivers, Amphenol’s interconnects play a major role in making the data center run smoothly. Amphenol is strongly interested in exploring the impact of immersion fluids on interconnects. At Amphenol, many teams are now testing their latest products in various fluids and evaluating performance and reliability differences between fluid and air environments, looking for ways to optimize design for immersion, traditional, or both, applications. In 2024, Amphenol’s High-Speed Backplane team released ExaMAX2® ARK to specifically support immersion applications. ExaMAX2® ARK is a derivative product of the widely adopted ExaMAX® product series designed for ideal performance characteristics in immersion-cooled systems. Check out this video from DesignCon 2024, when ExaMAX2® ARK debuted to the world.

The TR Multicoax from Amphenol Ardent Concepts is an industry-leading probe interface that delivers superior signal integrity for multiple high-speed analog or digital channels. With a choice of 20 GHz, 40 GHz, or 70 GHz configurations, users can upgrade their connectors as bandwidth requirements on their applications increases. TR is the highest-density high-speed multicoaxial connector on the market for improved proximity to DUT. The solderless, compression-mount interface design eliminates signal distortion for clean signal integrity, lowers the total cost of testing by avoiding costly solder-down components that can’t be recovered and encourages reuse across programs. Recently, the team conducted several tests of the standard TR solution in immersion applications and found that the design and construction of the TR products maintained the same standard of signal integrity and reliability. Check out this video from OFC 2024, showing Ardent’s products working in a channel with ExaMAX2® ARK.

As Amphenol explores ways to take optical modules into immersion environments, we rely on innovative products from our device partners, like DustPhotonics. DustPhotonics SiPh PIC solution promotes 400GbE through 1.6TbE capabilities in air-cooled and immersion-cooled environments, aiding in power management for next-generation data centers. PICs enable, extend, and increase data transmission. PICs may consume less power and generate less heat than conventional electronic circuits, offering the potential of energy-efficient bandwidth scaling. Check out this video from DustPhotonics CEO, Ronnen Lovinger, speaking at OFC 2024 about his products and the emergence of immersion-cooling. Products like these help Amphenol Xgiga develop attractive module solutions supporting the traditional data center switching market as well as AI and HPC markets. Amphenol is promoting industry-leading LPO (Linear Pluggable Optics) solutions and is looking to continue leadership in the TRO (Transmit Retimed Optics) or RTLR (Retimed Transmit Linear Receive) markets. These emerging applications place a strong weight on interoperability, along with latency and power,

The AI era is driving innovation in the data center and Amphenol is excited to enable the electronic and optical revolution. For more information on all of our products supporting AI applications, visit our website.