Liquid cooling is a great idea in theory, and has been around for a while, but vendors have struggled with the practicalities, he said: “This all sounds good, but it’s historically been difficult to do in practice. There’s a reason it’s niche and why Lenovo is pitching this as a new mainstream.”
There are a number of issues around the technology that companies need to consider, said Roberts. To begin with, most workloads don’t require a complex liquid cooling infrastructure. AI workloads might, and that’s probably why Lenovo is pushing this, he said. But liquid in data centers is not generally a good thing if it can be avoided, and managing plumbing could be a challenge.
“Do I see large-scale adoption in the short term? Probably not,” he concluded. “But do I see the need for this type of cooling solution increase as computing needs grow? That feels more likely.”
New AI services
At the same time as it unveiled the new cooling systems, Lenovo also announced new AI services running on Nvidia chips and software.
New services include Lenovo AI Fast Start for Nvidia NIM inference microservices, to give developers an easy to use and manageable containerized inference engine for Nvidia’s AI foundation models; AI Fast Start for Innovators to help companies build AI use cases with the combination of any of the 165+ turnkey Lenovo AI innovators program solutions; and upcoming AI advisory services, which will include training and tools to help customers engage and enable their employees.
There’s also Lenovo AI Discover to help customers assess their AI readiness, offering recommendations across the realms of people, process, technology, and security.
