Nonetheless, it’s price understanding what Microsoft is doing, because the applied sciences it’s implementing will have an effect on you and your digital infrastructure.
Cooling CPUs with microfluidics
Russinovich’s first presentation took a layered strategy to Azure, beginning with how its knowledge facilities are evolving. Actually, the size of the platform is spectacular: It now has greater than 70 areas and over 400 knowledge facilities. They’re linked by greater than 600,000 kilometers of fiber, together with hyperlinks throughout the oceans and across the continents, with main inhabitants facilities all a part of the identical community.
As workloads evolve, so do knowledge facilities, requiring rethinking how Azure cools its {hardware}. Energy and cooling calls for, particularly with AI workloads, are forcing redesigns of servers, bringing cooling proper onto the chip utilizing microfluidics. That is the subsequent step in liquid cooling, the place present designs put chilly plates on prime of a chip. Microfluidics goes a number of steps additional, requiring a redesign of the chip packaging to carry cooling on to the silicon die. By placing cooling proper the place the processing occurs, it’s attainable to extend the density of the {hardware}, stacking cooling layers between reminiscence, processing, and accelerators, all in the identical packaging.
