ICT Today

58 I ICT TODAY It can offer a simple way to allow each device to run at its most efficient performance level. There are plenty of options—fans, immersion cooling, and conductive liquid cooling. Even small changes like adjustments in rack design and cable usage offer clear ways to combat the growing heat of the growing need for power and speed. Looking to the future of data center design, there will be a growing dependence on thermal management analysis before a single rack is placed. Beyond the physical limitations of space, power, and even cost, data center professionals will find that thermal management is the key to unlocking more efficiency within their data centers. Sustainability plans will likely be a requirement for future data center builds and some hyperscale data centers are already planning for those changes. Additionally, there are possibilities for improving optics through better modulators that also reduce laser and optics power, but the caveat remains. The time to market for these technologies presents several challenges. Will they be available and scalable in time to relax the thermal challenges for future bandwidth requirements? Will the cost trade-offs of each create the optimal environment for deployment at scale? Sustainability plans will likely be a requirement for future data center builds and some hyperscale data centers are already planning for those changes. Microsoft intends to be carbon negative by 2030 and Google is already reporting its carbon footprint at zero. Further- more, Meta has announced plans to become carbon neutral. Social responsibility and the form of energy conservation is driving many of these innovative approaches to cooling. Sustainability can be different for each data center, but for many, it could mean implementing a continuous loop cycle—recapturing the heat from liquid cooling and using it for energy. In some cases, it can mean moving a data center to the lower level and the office to the floor above, capturing the heat from the data center to heat the office. While there is no right or wrong way to design or reconfigure a data center for optimal cooling, every design should be customized for each data center because micro decisions make a macro impact. Good thermal management offers significant benefits by increasing the lifespan of both servers and individual components. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES: Hasan Ali is a thermal engineer who manages the operations of the Thermal Lab at the Molex Design Center in Arkansas. He supports engineering, sales, and customers with thermal tests, simulations, and design guidance. He also designs and develops innovative thermal solutions for Molex. Hasan is leading the liquid cooling initiative in close collab- oration with key customers and serves as the lead thermal architect for QSFP-DD 800G and QSFP 400G cages and connectors. In addition, he is also the thermal architect for 112G QSFP-DD AEC and OSFP cables. Through his collaborative work with customers, Hasan has been granted multiple thermal solution patents. He also serves as the Molex thermal repre- sentative for the MSA-QSFP-DD, MSA-OSFP-XD and OCP-NIC work groups. Hasan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hasan believes the industry's need for innovative and disruptive thermal solutions has provided him a fast-paced learning environment and opportunities to add value. He can be reached at hasan.ali@molex.com. Keegan McGraw is a technologist in Molex's Datacom and Specialty Solutions division. He is responsible for connecting Molex product development teams with customer teams in support of new technologies and industry trends. Keegan received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana in 2012. He is currently supporting Molex's hyperscale customer ecosystem for Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies with a focus on open source and multi-source hardware architectures for Ethernet and PCIe/CXL. Keegan can be reached at keegan.mcgraw@molex.com.

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