NVIDIA Blackwell helps Lenovo achieve a 20% liquid cooling penetration rate by 2025, Lenovo is on a winning streak.
24/09/2024
GMT Eight
According to the latest survey by TrendForce, with the expected launch of the NVIDIA Blackwell new platform in the fourth quarter of 2024, the penetration rate of liquid cooling solutions is expected to significantly increase from around 10% in 2024 to over 20% in 2025. As global awareness of ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) increases, and CSPs (cloud service providers) accelerate the construction of AI servers, this is expected to drive the shift from air cooling to liquid cooling solutions.
Observing the global AI server market, in 2024, NVIDIA is still the main AI solution provider. In the GPU AI server market, NVIDIA holds a strong advantage with a market share of nearly 90%, while the second-ranked AMD has only about 8%.
TrendForce notes that the shipment volume of NVIDIA Blackwell this year is relatively small due to ongoing final product testing and verification processes in the supply chain, with continuous optimization needed in areas such as high-speed transmission and thermal design. The new platform, due to its high energy consumption, especially the GB200 full-rack solution requiring better thermal efficiency, is expected to promote the penetration rate of liquid cooling solutions. TrendForce estimates that by 2025, the Blackwell platform's share in high-end GPUs is expected to exceed 80%, prompting power supply manufacturers and the thermal industry to enter the AI liquid cooling market and create a new competitive landscape.
In recent years, major American cloud providers such as Google, AWS, and Microsoft have accelerated the deployment of AI servers, primarily using NVIDIA GPUs and self-developed ASICs. According to TrendForce, the thermal design power consumption (TDP) of the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 cabinet is as high as approximately 140kW, requiring a liquid cooling solution to address the heat dissipation issue. Other Blackwell servers with architectures such as HGX and MGX have lower densities and primarily use air cooling for thermal management.
Among American companies, Google is the most active in adopting liquid cooling solutions, in addition to air cooling for its TPU. In mainland China, Alibaba is actively expanding its liquid-cooled data centers.
Currently, Lenovo, HP, and Inspur have their own technologies in the global AI server liquid cooling solutions, with Lenovo's Neptune liquid cooling technology being the most mature and efficient. For over a decade, Lenovos Neptune has been at the forefront of cooling technology in data centers, introducing a unique liquid cooling method that can provide customers with up to 40% power savings compared to traditional air cooling systems. The Neptune solution uses warm water circulation to cool the data center systems, cooling all server components and reducing the need for high-power system fans during data center operation.
With over 40 industry-leading patents, Lenovo is taking liquid cooling technology to new heights. With the introduction of the sixth generation Lenovo Neptune liquid cooling technology, Lenovo will expand its industry-leading Neptune liquid cooling technology into the mainstream product portfolios of ThinkSystem V3 and V4, introducing new design innovations:
Expanding the widespread application of Neptune technology: Mainstream ThinkSystem V3 and V4 products will offer options for directly open-loop water cooling for CPUs.
Industry-unique cold plate design: Patented cold plate design optimized for CPUs and accelerators, maximizing the heat extraction efficiency of approximately 700W accelerators, with future designs supporting accelerators exceeding 1000W.
New memory cooling technology for the ThinkSystem platform: Lenovo's patented memory cooling technology designed for high-density, high-performance computing (HPC) systems will be integrated into specific ThinkSystem platforms, offering liquid cooling directly to DRAM, allowing customers to choose CPU and memory cooling options to effectively reduce heat and maximize performance.
The sixth generation Neptune warm water cooling design will allow operation without the need for special data center air conditioning and will convert waste heat into value by allowing the reuse of facility hot water.
Through these innovations, Lenovo continues to strengthen its leadership position in high-performance computing and sustainable development, providing customers with more efficient and environmentally friendly cooling solutions to meet the growing demand for high-performance computing.