Market Trends of Uk Data Center Cooling Industry
IT and Telecom to Hold Significant Share
- The telecommunications industry is looking toward institutionalization to supervise and promote digital transformation, making the process a foundation for developing the digital economy and society. The telecom industry contributes 4-5% of the UK's GDP and plays a vital role in the economic and social well-being of the country. In 2021, inhabitants of the UK made around 187 billion minutes worth of calls over mobile networks compared to about 40 billion minutes over fixed networks.
- As per industry surveys, the percentage of smartphone users looking to upgrade is increasing, with more than 35% intending to upgrade to 5G as of 2022 compared to less than 28% as of 2019. 5G users, on average, consume up to 2.7x more mobile data compared to 4G users, which is expected to increase data traffic congestion.
- Overall, with increasing traffic, the demand for cooling solutions is increasing in the telecom data center due to high power consumption along with a focus on low carbon emission.
- In terms of R&D, the UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN) acts as an information point to access funding or testing facilities for R&D. The technology is considered crucial to the government's GBP 250 million (USD 342.5 million) strategy to lower the barriers for firms seeking to enter the UK telecoms supply chain, which will increase competition and drive up the quality of products. This will increase the surge in data, leading to a major increase in traffic congestion and data center cooling demand.
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Liquid Cooling to Hold Significant Growth
- In the United Kingdom, data centers rely heavily on water in order to regulate and maintain internal temperature, especially in facilities using traditional cooling tower methods compared to more efficient hybrid or adiabatic systems.
- Liquids offer a far higher heat capacity than air, and water is 4,000 times more efficient than air. With rack density estimates north of 50kW, this technology offers opportunities to achieve increased energy efficiency across the data center compared with air-cooled sites.
- Hyperscale data centers run by technology giants often use vast amounts of water. Google struck a deal that guarantees it 1 million gallons a day to cool one data center. Because of their large size, they have space to add extra cooling capacity to cope with temperature spikes.
- Thousands of swimming pools in Britain are currently experiencing an energy problem. In order to provide cloud users with an HPC cluster, Deep Green installed a 28 kW system. The technology, which is modeled after Deep Green's own immersion cooling tubs, makes use of oil to absorb heat from the servers and then circulates it through a heat exchanger to warm the pool. Deep Green provides the Exmouth Leisure Centre with free heat while paying for the electricity it consumes.
- The region is witnessing multiple launches, collaborations, partnerships, and innovation activities, which are increasing immersion cooling technology in data centers. In March 2023, a small Edge data center known as a "digital boiler" is being used by a recreational facility in Exmouth, Devon, to supply some of the energy required to heat its swimming pool.
- Furthermore, cloud storage use has expanded over the years, which is likely to raise demand for liquid data center cooling systems. Cloud storage companies like Google and Microsoft are expanding their storage capacity in the country to enable more efficient cloud workflow, which will lead to a major demand for liquid cooling.
