Welcome to IBM’s Supercomputer Waterworld of the Future

Computers are just too damned hot.

It’s becoming a real problem. Big internet companies like Facebook have taken Intel to task over the issue and — sensing a real opportunity — other companies have started to build new systems using the same kinds of low-power processors you’ll find in your mobile phone. In fact, 2013 is likely to be the year that we get an inkling of how far these new ARM systems are going to push old-school chipmakers like Intel and AMD.

But over in Poughkeepsie, NY, IBM is studying these server power problems. And you know what? It’s seen it all before.

IBM started building water cooling into its System 360 computers back in the early 1960s. Fifteen years later, IBM built most of its chips using a transistor technology, called bipolar, that was being stretched to its limits. Chips were getting too hot, and IBM developed new kinds of water radiators to cool them down. Big Blue’s designs were so accomplished that one of them — a cooling unit that used dozens of spring-powered pistons to pump water off of the chip — was featured on the July 1983 cover of Scientific American.

A new generation of transistors — they’re called Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor, or CMOS — came in during the early 1990s and saved the day. Much more power-efficient than their bipolar predecessors, they ushered in an era of air-cooled servers. IBM stopped building water-cooled systems in 1995. But it’s building them again and for many, the air-cooled era may be coming to an end, says Roger Schmidt, the IBM Fellow in charge of the company’s energy efficiency research.

In 2005, IBM took a small step back into water cooling — piping out a heat exchanger that fits onto the back of a server rack. And now the company is looking at new ways of water-cooling its chips, just like back in the 80s.

The water-cooling proposition often comes as a bit of a shock, except to the old-timers who remember the 70s and 80s. “A lot of the people out there who run data centers aren’t into water because they’ve grown up in the CMOS era,” Schmidt says. “The guys that were never in water and were just air-cooling CMOS, they say, ‘Keep that away from me.'”

Above: IBM Engineer Levi Campbell checks out an air chiller outside of IBM’s labs in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Photo: Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM

Here’s what the inside of a water-cooled server looks like. In this prototype, engineer Milnes David looks at copper pipes carrying the water to radiators located on the server doors. Back in the day IBM water-cooled systems used water that was a relatively cool 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Nowadays the water is warmer — more like 113 degrees. IBM has a test system in the lab that runs at about 150 degrees. 

Photo: Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM

Bob Simons checks out the cooling system he designed for the IBM mainframe back in the 1980s. Called the Thermal Conduction Module, it used dozens of miniscule spring-powered pistons to pump water off the mainframe’s bipolar chips. 

Photo: Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM

A closer look at Bob Simons’ Thermal Conduction Module heat-exchange assembly, used in the 1980s. 

Photo: Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM

Today IBM is developing new water-cooling systems that are only a little bigger than a sugar cube. This is a test system developed by IBM researchers. 

Photo: IBM

A model 3-D liquid cooled chip built by IBM researchers in Zurich. The 3-D chips use miniscule cooling channels to dissipate the intense amount of heat generated by these chips, which stack lots of processor cores in a very small amount of space. 

Photo: IBM

IBM says that this water-cooled supercomputer, called SuperMUC, in Munich’s Leibniz Supercomputing Center is 40 percent more power-efficient than an air-cooled system. 

Photo: IBM

Marvel at the pipes in this closeup look at the IBM iDataPlex Direct Water Cooled dx360 M4.