High Density Colocation

Colocation for High-Performance Computing​

From climate change to cancer research, High-Performance Computing solves the world’s greatest research challenges. However, building a high-density data center to accommodate HPC requires specialized talent, precise construction design, operational expertise, and significant capital.

By relying on DataBank’s HPC-ready colocation facilities and extensive experience with HPC deployments, your organization can leverage our capabilities to match your requirements.​

Key Benefits​

• Reduces the cost of building and maintaining your own data center(s)​
• Eliminates heat-related outages ​
• Increases access to options within a single facility and provider, helping you avoid switching costs ​
• Enables access to technical expertise​
• Increases speed-to-market for your applications​
• Reduces operational risk

By partnering with DataBank, your organization can decrease upfront costs and support innovation efforts. Our Universal Data Hall Design (UDHD) offers a range of HPC-enablement solutions to give you the agility your dynamic compute environments require.​

The Foundational Elements

All of our new data center builds are HPC-Ready. The base design incorporates slab flooring with perimeter cooling, which is ideal for large hyperscale deployments. For higher densities, technologies like rear door heat exchangers or direct-to-chip cooling can be provisioned with minimal effort. If clients require a more traditional enterprise deployment, DataBank can easily add raised flooring to accommodate varying cabinet sizes, layouts, and other options. This universal approach provides the agility our clients require today – and well into the future.

Air-Cooled Designs​

Perimeter CRAH units, wider cabinet spacing, and hot-aisle containment on a slab floor make accommodating HPC environments with an air-cooled design possible.

This design allows for the data hall to be cooled while containing the heat, allowing for the most efficient cooling when provisioning heavy cabinets from 10-30kW in straight rows, such as in Hyperscale deployments. ​

• Hot-aisle containment & wider cabinet spacing (8 to10 ft.)​
• Slab floor, > 5,000 lb. cabinets​
• 10-30kW+ of power draw

Water-Cooled Designs

Either liquid cooling underneath a raised floor or overhead on a slab makes accommodating HPC environments with a water-cooled design possible.

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• Water-chilled cabinet doors​
• Raised or slab floor​
• 30-80kW+ of power draw ​

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Chilled Cabinet Doors​

This design allows for the heat to be removed using water-cooled cabinet doors, which absorb the heat on a per-cabinet basis, allowing for much higher densities than hot-aisle containment in an air-cooled design. By using modulating water valves and variable speed fans, the chilled doors can dynamically adjust to the exact needs of the cabinet, reducing overall energy usage and costs. After absorbing the heat from each cabinet, the water within the system circulates to the chiller plant, where high-efficiency chillers reject the heat to the outside air, cooling the water to be recirculated back into the data halls. ​

​Direct-to-chip ​

Direct-to-chip (sometimes called “direct-on-chip”) designs bring chilled water directly to the server components producing heat (CPUs, GPUs, etc.) via rack-mounted manifolds and flexible hosing. Water pulls heat away from the source components and is circulated back to the main system, where it is cooled and then pumped back again. Bringing water directly to the heat source allows for very efficient heat transfer and is one of the most effective and efficient ways to cool HPC environments. ​

Immersion Cooling ​

Immersion cooling designs allow for the components (or servers themselves) to be submerged in dialectic fluid. This design eliminates fans and traditional heat exchangers. The heat is transferred directly away from the heat source using the dialectic fluid. Because many server components are sensitive to electrical current (and submerged as part of this process), immersion cooling is generally limited to four types of fluids: de-ionized water, mineral oil, fluorocarbon-based fluids, and synthetic fluids. Implementation of immersion cooling can handle far greater power densities, operate cleanly and quietly, and cost less than traditional air cooling. ​

DataBank’s Extensive Expertise​

Databank has multiple years of experience accommodating and delivering high-density colocation solutions for HPC environments in public supercomputing such as Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland. We also support public organizations in financial services, cloud, software, and AI. Our staff includes seasoned engineering, construction, and data center operations veterans.​