Air quality drives innovation in data center cooling at Chinese internet giant Read More
Source: China Data Center Operators Struggle With Pollution
BEIJING—China’s notoriously high air pollution levels are a well-documented public-health issue. It also impacts the cooling of data centers in China. Pulling outside air into a data center to cool equipment is one of the most effective ways to increase data center energy efficiency. However, the high concentration of airborne pollutants makes “free cooling” in Chinese data centers not as easily obtainable as it is in the United States. Because air pollution has resulted in higher IT equipment failure rates for Baidu, China’s largest Internet search company, it has focused a lot of research and development efforts to find innovative ways to cool its data centers. One promising method is placing heat-exchanger coils directly underneath the IT racks to cool them without a raised floor.
